$PATH in zsh

Question

Level 1

4 points

$PATH in zsh

I am attempting to get zsh to add the ~/bin directory to my path. I added ~/bin to /etc/paths and it shows up when I echo $PATH in zsh:

echo $PATH

/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:~/bin

Yet, zsh continues to report command not found when I attempt to run a script found in ~/bin.

If I chsh -s /bin/bash, it works without issue.

I ran across some posts suggesting to use ${Home}/bin instead of ~ in zsh but that did not appear to work either.

Any suggestions?

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Mar 15, 2021 12:02 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,454 points

Mar 15, 2021 2:47 PM in response to mac_user61

First of all, Zsh does not read the Bash dotfiles as it has its own, and secondly, here is what my ~/.zshrc PATH setting reflects:

export PATH="$HOME/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

You can invoke this new PATH in the current Terminal session with:

source ~/.zshrc

With this PATH, you can run anything in ~/bin from anywhere in the Terminal.

Zsh will read the ~/.zshrc file whether switching between shells, or when you launch the Terminal application.

Reply

Answer 2

mac_user61 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 15, 2021 4:20 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Yes, that appears to be the issue. If I put the full path in /etc/paths, it works as expected. It is odd that zsh does not expand the tilde in the PATH variable yet it has no issue with it when it is used in the shell itself.

Reply

Answer 3

Mar 15, 2021 3:28 PM in response to mac_user61

I have not used zsh and I am not at my mac to test but from what I see it looks like zsh is not honoring the tilde. And concerning the $HOME I would have expected that to have been expanded.

What happens if you add the full path to the bin folder instead, eg /Users/me/bin ?

Reply

Answer 4

mac_user61 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 15, 2021 3:21 PM in response to mac_user61

I am not referring to any bash dot files. /etc/paths is a MAC OS implementation and, as far as I know, is not shell dependent. The path variable in my zsh shell shows ~/bin was added to the path after editing /etc/paths. (I also added ${HOME}/bin).

dnelson@laptop ~ % echo $PATH

/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:~/bin:${HOME}/bin

dnelson@laptop ~ % power

zsh: command not found: power

dnelson@laptop ~ % ~/bin/power

Chassis Power Control: Up/On

Reply

Answer 5

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,454 points

Mar 15, 2021 3:34 PM in response to mac_user61

I do not edit /etc/paths for any reason. I control my $PATH order in the manner I provided. Have been doing it that way across several UNIX systems and macOS for a very long while.

Reply

$PATH in zsh

Similar questions