#20524: base-1.7.1 Neater PATH change process for Postflight -------------------------------------+-------------------------------------- Reporter: alex@… | Owner: macports-tickets@… Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: Normal | Milestone: MacPorts Future Component: base | Version: 1.7.1 Keywords: PATH profile postflight | Port: -------------------------------------+-------------------------------------- In a basic install of MacPorts 1.7.1 on clean Leopard, my .profile didn't get updated with the required PATH adjustments for /opt/local - so I decided to do it myself. In looking through the various 'profile' files in /etc - for all the different shells (csh, bash, tcsh, zsh, etc.) - they all have code in them to run /usr/libexec/path_helper. This is a script that reads two files in /etc - /etc/paths and /etc/manpaths which are simple text files containing a list of paths to be added to $PATH when the shell environment is set up. Instead of the extra code in the postflight script to determine what shell is used etc. to add the MacPorts paths to $PATH, wouldn't it be just much neater to add the two paths to the /etc/paths file? Then you'd always have access to the MacPorts apps regardless of what shell you use in OS X, because Apple have ensured that this /usr/libexec/path_helper is run across all shells. This may be Leopard-only, and if you don't consider a global $PATH modification appropriate then feel free to cancel this ticket, but I feel it'd be a useful solution for many MacPorts users, and certainly would simplify the postflight. I still get occasional non-editing of .profile when running the current package. I prepended the two paths /opt/local/bin and /opt/local/sbin to the /etc/paths file, and on opening a Terminal window (regardless of shell - I tried bash, zsh, tcsh and sh), the MacPorts folders were in the $PATH variable and I could run MacPorts code. Nice and easy and more elegant than hacking .profile files, which may already be extensively hacked by the users themselves. Just a suggestion, and I'm a complete newbie to this bug tracker system so apologies if this is in the wrong place. Please allocate to the right location! cheers, Alex -- Ticket URL: <http://trac.macports.org/ticket/20524> MacPorts <http://www.macports.org/> Ports system for Mac OS