Comments on: Adding to $PATH in MacOSX 10.5 (Leopard)

By: dobbs

dobbs — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:50:46 +0000

Use single quotes to prevent variable expansion:

echo ‘$HOME/bin’ > HomeBin

By: Shaon Diwakar

Shaon Diwakar — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:54:41 +0000

My pleasure Emily! I didn’t realise that BASH evaluates variables inside double quotes! You learn something new everyday Thanks for the tip Emily

By: Emily

Emily — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:58:59 +0000

Just a little addition: I wanted to add $HOME/bin to the path and being happy to have found out about path_helper thanks to this post, without putting my brain into gear, I typed

echo “$HOME/bin” > HomeBin

in place of step six above. Of course, what I didn’t think of was that BASH evaluates variables inside double quotes so what was being put into HomeBin was /var/root/bin (the home of the super user is /var/root).

To get by this, either edit the file with a text editor such as vi and enter the variable or use single quotes in place of double quotes around the path you want added to $PATH.

Thanks for the post Shaon!

By: Shaon Diwakar

Shaon Diwakar — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 07:34:15 +0000

Thanks for the comments Connor! It would be nice if there were an easier method to edit the path _without_ having root/superuser privileges (aside from constantly editing via echo $PATH = $PATH;/path…

By: connor doyle

connor doyle — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:29:09 +0000

heh.. nevermind, that exactly what the post says to do!

By: connor doyle

connor doyle — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:28:09 +0000

There is an easy way to get it done. Simply add a file to the directory /etc/paths.d

i.e.
sudo touch /etc/paths.d/

then edit that file. the only thing you need to put in it is the path you need. these paths are appended to your PATH environment. if you’re doing this in a terminal window you’ll need to restart the terminal app (or just open a new tab) to see the results of your change.

cheers!