Set or modify a path in Unix
The PATH environment variable is a colon-delimited list of directories that your shell searches through when you enter a command.
Program files (executables) are kept in many different places on the Unix system. Your path tells the Unix shell where to look on the system when you request a particular program. Having more directories in your path will reduce the number of times you get "Command not found" errors, but might put you at greater risk of activating a Trojan horse.
To find out what your path is, at the Unix shell prompt, enter:
echo $PATH
Your path will look something like the following.
/usr2/username/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:.
You will see your username in place of username
. Using
the above example path, if you enter the ls
command, your
shell will look for the appropriate executable file in the following
order: first, it would look through the directory
/usr2/username/bin
, then /usr/local/bin
,
then /usr/bin
, and finally the local directory, indicated
by the .
(a period).
To modify your path
If you are using csh
or tcsh
, at the shell
prompt, enter:
setenv PATH $PATH\:/dir/path
If you are using sh
, ksh
, or
bash
, at the shell prompt, enter:
PATH=$PATH\:/dir/path ; export PATH
In all cases, replace /dir/path
with the directory you
want the shell to search.
$PATH\:/dir/path
with /dir/path:$PATH
.
To make these changes permanent, add the commands described above to
the end of your .cshrc
file (for csh
and
tcsh
), .profile
file (for sh
and ksh
), or .bash_profile
file (for
bash
).
At Indiana University, for personal or departmental Linux or Unix systems support, see Get help for Linux or Unix at IU.
This is document acar in the Knowledge Base.
Last modified on 2019-08-27 08:51:32.