Is there a single file that holds all of my PATH data?

Question

In the process of getting some things (Skype and Maven) to run I've managed to get some directories to appear twice when I echo $PATH. Is there a single file that I can edit to as to keep this list tidy and readily accessible?

Answer 1

jmags wrote:Thanks for the answers. Nevertheless, there are more things about which I am curious. For example, if I enter "export PATH = $PATH:/some/new/path" on the command line, is that written into my .bashrc?
Your path is in a system variable named PATH.  By convention, variable names are in all capital letters.  To access this variable in bash, you put a $ in front of the variable name, in this case $PATH.  The command
export PATH = $PATH:/some/new/path"
entered on the command line appends /some/new/path to the system variable named PATH.  It does not change .bashrc in any way.  In fact, if you want your new PATH set everytime you enter bash, put the
export PATH=$PATH:/some/new/path
in your .bashrc file, and it will be executed every time you start bash and be there automatically for you.
For further info on this, look at the man page for bash
$ man bash
Shell Variables
       The following variables are set by the shell:
    HOME   The home directory of the current user; the default argument for
               the cd builtin command.  The value of this variable is also used
               when performing tilde expansion.
    PATH   The  search  path for commands.  It is a colon-separated list of
              directories in which the shell looks for commands  (see  COMMAND
              EXECUTION  below).   A  zero-length (null) directory name in the
              value of PATH indicates the current directory.  A null directory
              name  may  appear  as  two  adjacent colons, or as an initial or
              trailing colon.  The default path is  system-dependent,  and  is
              set  by  the administrator who installs bash.  A common value is
              ``/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/ucb:/bin:/usr/bin''.
as a couple of examples.   
Pudge
Last edited by Pudge (2007-05-10 01:55:16)