Setting system-wide environment variables in El Capitan

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Level 1

8 points

Setting system-wide environment variables in El Capitan

I was using the method described in this post to invoke "

launchctl setenv

" to set environment variables globally. I have just upgraded to OS X 10.11 "El Capitan," and now I see that the launchctl command works fine, but appears to have no effect on the actual environment. For example, here is the output from some debug code I stuck into a "make" file running under Eclipse:

launchctl getenv PATH

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/ecos/gnutools/h8300-elf/bin:/opt/ecos/gnutool s/arm-elf/bin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin

echo "PATH = /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin"

PATH = /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

Anyone have any idea what's happening to me? Thanks in advance.

Important note 1: I'm talking about system-wide environment variables, not environment variables within a shell.

Important note 2: This problem is specific to El Capitan; I had it working fine (again...) in Yosemite.

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Nov 16, 2015 5:10 AM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Nov 16, 2015 6:53 AM in response to pkeller1

echo $PATH

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Answer 2

pkeller1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 16, 2015 7:37 AM in response to Linc Davis

Actually, that's what I did ($(PATH) within makefile). I just copied/pasted the output from make, which had already done the substitution.

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Nov 16, 2015 7:38 AM in response to pkeller1

It sounds like make is resetting the path. That will override what you set with launchctl, but it only affects the shell. I'm not aware that anything but the shell is affected by the PATH variable, anyway.

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Answer 4

pkeller1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 16, 2015 8:09 AM in response to Linc Davis

No, "make" is not the culprit: I replaced Eclipse's build command, which was a "make", with "printenv PATH", and the result is "/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin". If anything, the guilty party would be Eclipse, but I've been working with this version of Eclipse for years, and it's never reset the path on me before.

Besides, I wrote a quick command-line program in Xcode to do a getenv("PATH"), and ran it within the debugger. It showed that the path was modified by Xcode, but it didn't include my modifications that I had applied via launchctl.

Of course you're right about the PATH variable only affecting the shell. Specifically, the shells spawned by "make" when it goes to compile – it doesn't find my cross-compiler.

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