$PATH is not updated

Question

It seems all about this was already discussed, but I can't resolve my problem. I have all necessary strings in /etc/paths

/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
/usr/local/bin

in ~/.bash_profile

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/mysql/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.rvm/bin
export PATH="$(brew --prefix php54)/bin:$PATH"
export PATH="$(brew --prefix)/bin:$PATH"

But every time I execute

echo $PATH

in terminal, I get only

/usr/local/bin

if I put .bash_profile strings to .profile or .bashrc I have no effect.

Solution 1

PATH is constructed first from /etc/paths, then from the files in /etc/paths.d, and then from .bash_profile. Starting from the last step, methodically remove each step, and test to see if your problem is recreated.

1. Comment out every line in .bash_profile and save (or you could delete/rename it).
2. Close out your terminal and restart it to reconstruct your PATH.
3. echo $PATH. It should contain everything from /etc/paths.

If everything from /etc/paths is included, then your problem lies in your .bash_profile. Uncomment one line at a time until you recreate your problem. Then you will know which line is your problem, and will be able to troubleshoot that instead of a vague PATH issue.

Alternatively, if deleting .bash_profile has no effect, then you have a problem that's occurring before .bash_profile acts. Check the files in /etc/paths.d - those also get appended to your PATH. Move them out of paths.d and then test whether your PATH is properly constructed from /etc/paths.

It seems like a lot of people have some trouble with rvm, as in this post and this post , so I'm guessing the problem lies in your .bash_profile. Good luck and let us know.

Solution 2

Do this in the shell:

$ source ~/.bashrc

This makes the current session aware of the change.

Comments

[Admin]

Have you quit terminal and retry?

[Admin]

yes, sure, I restarted it!

[Admin]

Type ". .bash_profile" to reload .bash_profile and update any functions you add.

[Admin]

it didn't help, I don't understand why there are no paths from /etc/paths? only /usr/local/bin

[naren]

Any change if you put those lines in .bashrc instead?

[Admin]

Hm, I moved to .bashrcand make empty bash_profile and it helped. But I believe I've made this already(:

[naren]

From man bash When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order,

[Penghe Geng]

You sure there's no such line somewhere in your .bash_profile or .bashrc: export PATH=/usr/local/bin?

[Admin]

I still have no effect! I even have no /usr/bin in PATH.