changing $PATH and finding .profile?

[yehudithasin]

Hi all,
I am pretty new to unix - so sorry if this is trivial....On Mac OS X 10.6 running terminal:
I need to add a directory to my $PATH, tried

PATH=$PATH\:/usr/local/newdir; export PATH

For whatever reason when I do this now it works only for this particular shell, and the PATH gets reverted to what it was before.
After some reading on the web I understood that I may need to change it in .bash_profile or .profile files, but I can't find them anywhere (looking through hidden files with ls -a)....
How do I permanently change $PATH and where is it stored?

Thank you in advance
Yu

[hayne]

See this Unix FAQ

[yehudithasin]

Hi Hayne

I looked at it before posting, the export works for the specific shell, for whatever reason the PATH keeps reverting for every new shell I open. The shell is bash...

Yu

[trevor]

Look at this specific section of the Unix FAQ: How do I set up my shell execution PATH?, specifically the words 8 through 12 under both the sections that are titled, "Setting PATH in the xxxx Shell".

Trevor

[yehudithasin]

Hi Trevor - thanks for the response, apparently I am missing something:
this is what that sections says:
"Setting PATH in the bash shell
To set up your PATH in bash, you edit the file ~/.profile (using any text editor that can save in plain text - e.g. 'pico') and add a line like the following...."
I dont have a .profile or .bash_profile file anywhere...not in ~ directory and not in any system directory I tried to look in. I looked through the hidden files as well.

It also says to use export:
"export PATH="/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin"
The above would set the following folders/directories to be in your PATH...."

This seems to work only for the specific shell instance I am running. If I open a new shell, in that shell the PATH variable reverts to what it was before.....
I think I dont have Fink installed so the next paragraph is not relevant. After that it goes to tcsh shell.

Did I miss anything in that section?
Yu

[trevor]

Quote: Originally Posted by yehudithasin I dont have a .profile or .bash_profile file anywhere...not in ~ directory and not in any system directory I tried to look in. I looked through the hidden files as well.

If you don't have a ~/.profile file, then you'll need to create one.

Setting the PATH with a command, but not actually saving it to a configuration file such as ~/.profile, will just change the PATH for the shell that you currently have running, not into the future.

Trevor