Comments on: Upgraded to Leopard : Making use of /etc/paths.d and path_helper

By: Timo Meinen

Timo Meinen — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:14:32 +0000

You can just erase the default PATH entry before path_helper is called like this:

if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
PATH=”"
eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi

Then you have full control in /etc/paths and /etc/paths.d. Do this in

/etc/profile
/etc/csh.login
/etc/zprofile

By: John Bledsoe

John Bledsoe — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:52:12 +0000

In Snow Leopard, moving “/usr/local/bin” to the top in “/etc/paths” now works without modifying “/etc/profile”.

By: Reid Ellis

Reid Ellis — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:38:05 +0000

Something to note is that the starting path is read from ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist which you can manipulate:

defaults read ~/.MacOSX/environment PATH

defaults write ~/.MacOSX/environment PATH “$PATH”

By: Renato

Renato — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:35:12 +0000

I had also the problem of wanting /usr/local/bin be first in the path before the defaults. My issue was that I wanted to override a default install of svn and use a newer installed in /usr/local/bin. But the problem is the same as for you.

I played around w/ “/etc/path.d” and edited “/etc/paths” itself adding always “/usr/local/bin/” on top but it would always get listed after the defaults.

I looked at “/etc/paths” and found the following entries:
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
/usr/local/bin

I had in “/etc/paths.d/” only the file “X11″ which contained one line: “/usr/X11/bin/”
doing a “set” or “echo $PATH” from the command line would return:
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin

So it was clear (also explained in the man page for path_helper) that the content of of the paths.d directory would always be appended to what was found in “paths” itself.

I placed “/usr/local/bin” at top of paths but the order didn’t change. I logged out and back in and even rebooted to make sure there is nothing else causing this behavior but it always remained in the same order.

If I removed “/usr/local/bin” it was gone from the path but the rest stayed as is.
I had the suspicion that the content of “/etc/paths” didn’t really matter for the default entries of “/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin” and took them completely out of “/etc/paths” and logged into another shell to prove it. And sure enough, even w/o the entries the path variable was the same.
Therefore here is the order it apparently uses when it calls “path_helper” from /etc/profile at login:
1) System defaults
2) /etc/paths content aside system defaults
3) /etc/paths.d/ content
Apple wanted apparently to play save and not allow users to override system defaults and evtl. cripple the system.

I finally solved the problem by adding
export PATH=/usr/local/bin/:$PATH;

before the path_helper call in /etc/profile:
if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi

Now “/usr/local/bin” is searched first

By: Kamil Kisiel

Kamil Kisiel — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:37:08 +0000

Lorin: You can add paths to /etc/paths instead, if you care about the order.

By: Lorin Rivers

Lorin Rivers — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:11:03 +0000

What’s wacky about this whole scheme is that you have no control over load order, so if you (for example) use MacPorts, how do make /opt/local/bin be the first part of your $PATH?

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:35:21 +0000

Nevermind that previous comment…like a previous poster mentioned path helper is automatically initialized in the /etc/profile

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:29:11 +0000

I used a vanilla (unmodified) /etc/profile as it is read only for me, and just added a nice little test file called cdrtools to /etc/paths.d and it worked like a charm! All I had to do was restart my terminal app (opening a new tab would have done the trick as well I assume.

Thanks!

By: Jürgen

Jürgen — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:16:06 +0000

Thanks for your post! I helped me a lot.

By: ajordens

ajordens — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:03:50 +0000

I agree that it’s not that much of a difference but you will only be hard-coding the paths in one location.

Personally (and prior to using paths.d in Leopard) I’d just do my all my exports and PATH setup in the /etc/profile or .bash_profile directly.

For a lot of frameworks, you will need to define a FRAMEWORK_HOME environment variable in addition to simply including it on the path. In these situations, I’d argue there’s a slight benefit.

And I agree w/ your suggestion to Guillaume, that’s a pretty standard approach to separating your VMs and is something Apple and the various Linux distros having been doing for awhile (/etc/alternatives/java, etc.).