[Eug-lug] Dos path= equivalent

[larry price]

there is;
 it's referred to as $PATH within the shell 
but it operates by slightly different rules than DOS

you typically set it in your .profile or .bash_profile (or .cshrc if
you are perverse)

for the rest of this post we'll assume you are using the bash shell
and follow the convention that
a $ at the start of the line represents what you would type at the prompt.

first off check to see if you currently have a PATH set

$ echo $PATH

If you get a blank line you have no PATH so you need to set one by 
setting the value of the PATH variable equal to a colon separated list
of ddirectories

$ PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:~/bin
$ export PATH

note that there are no spaces anywhere in the variable declaration.
the export line means that the variable is set in the environment and
that child processes
(any scripts you run any commands you execute) will inherit those values.

take a look at your .bash_profile (or .profile) to make sure that your
path is getting set at login.

one thing you do want to avoid is setting . or .. in your path, doing
so means that you will execute programs in either the current
directory or the parent of the current directory, usually without
intending to do so.

On Mon, 2 Aug 2004 20:41:40 -0400 (EDT), Bill Essig <bill at rpgopher.com> wrote:
> Hi, Im new. My name is Andrew.  I have to type ./sbin/ifconfig or
> /sbin/ifconfig etc. etc.  In dos (shudder) there is a path variable where
> you can type in a default path I.E. /sbin /usr/bin etc. so I dont have to
> type the path or be in the directory.  I dont know how I killed it, but it
> won work anymore. Help?
> 
> -Andrew
> _______________________________________________
> EUGLUG mailing list
> euglug at euglug.org
> http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
> 


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