From: Dave Yost <Dave@Yost.com>
To: zsh-workers@zsh.org
Subject: managing PATH, MANPATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc.
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 10:06:12 -0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <E034D28C-0219-4365-8E6C-D7A37D9F584B@yost.com> (raw)
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AFAIK we have no choice in zsh but to tediously add things individually by hand to the various path environment variables. The Environment Modules System <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_Modules_(software)> for linux gives higher-level control, but it’s a whole ball of wax of its own. If I do this
module load llvm/3.5.1
then the relevant directories from /usr/local/llvm/3.5.1 will be added to the front of PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, LIBRARY_PATH, and CPATH, or whatever paths have been specified in the “modulefile” for llvm/3.5.1.
A zsh shell function could allow similarly convenient manipulation of paths, without buying into the whole Environment Modules thing.
Imagine a shell function called “paths”. Doing this:
paths set /usr/local /usr /
wants to set PATH to this:
/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/sbin
/usr/bin
/usr/sbin
/bin
/sbin
and does so, except that directories that don’t exist, such as /usr/local/sbin, are not added.
An important convenience of the paths function would be that it also works similarly for MANPATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, LIBRARY_PATH, and CPATH.
You can also do these:
paths remove /usr/local/llvm/3.5.1
paths addlast /usr/local/llvm/3.5.1
paths addfirst /usr/local/llvm/3.5.1
with the obvious effects (including removing from paths before adding at the desired position), and
paths list
would output like this
/usr/local/llvm/3.5.1
/usr/local
/usr
/
One notable exception is adding “.” to PATH. The paths function could help here, too:
paths --no-subdirs --only=PATH addlast .
On my Mac, here’s what’s in /etc/paths
/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
But what about MANPATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, LIBRARY_PATH, and CPATH? The paths function could be smart enough to eat /etc/paths as input, stripping off the /bin part of each item and then doing:
paths /usr/local /usr /
That way /etc/paths wouldn’t have to change. Better would be a new overriding file, called /etc/prefixes or something, that just has a list of arguments to the paths function:
/usr/local
/usr
/
Comments? Volunteers? Is this already out there somewhere?
I do not plan to implement this anytime soon.
Dave
next reply other threads:[~2015-01-28 18:06 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2015-01-28 18:06 Dave Yost [this message]
2015-01-28 18:39 ` Bart Schaefer
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