yes, i've got clues (was Re: Shell $PATH problems)

[Andre Garzia]

On Jul 11, 2004, at 10:39 PM, Sarah Reichelt wrote:

> No solutions here, only another factor to toss into the pot :-)
> Revolution allows you to retrieve certain environment variables. If 
> you open the Variable Watcher, at the top you will see the listed, 
> beginning with $.
> However, the same discrepancy occurs with the $PATH variable:
> in Terminal: /bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
> in Rev's VW: /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Users/sarah
>

Sarah,

could this be because Terminal might be fiddling with $PATH when it 
starts. Like the Terminal is a sandboxed app, it runs in it own space, 
it launches .profile and maybe others initialization scripts when it 
starts. $PATH is a variable that is set when the system starts and 
might be affect by gazilions of scripts everywhere in Unix-space, I 
never trust it to be pointing where I want it to point, that why I like 
using absolute paths and not trusting $PATH to contain what I want.

I just noticed that in my home folder of my MacOS X theres a invisible 
.cshrc (thats invoked when terminal starts) that invokes another fella 
called /sw/bin/init.csh which has the following piece of text 
description:

# define append_path and prepend_path to add directory paths, e.g. 
PATH, MANPATH

so, this script is written in csh code, thus, unreadable by me, but it 
does some juggling with arguments and makes many changes to my $PATH 
and $MANPATH vars...

I guess if you all look into your home folders you'll find similar 
hidden script files. And that explain why terminal $PATH is different 
from Rev $PATH...

Cheers
andre




> Cheers,
> Sarah
>
-- 
Andre Alves Garzia ð 2004 ð BRAZIL
http://studio.soapdog.org