[Xquartz-dev] env variables and launchd problem

[Dave Ray]

> On Mar 21, 2011, at 17:29, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
>> On Mar 21, 2011, at 5:11 PM, Jeremy Huddleston wrote:
>> 
>>> I think the problem is that you are setting the values in .bashrc.  X11 inherits your *login* shell environment.  This is set by .profile (not .bashrc).
>> 
>> Actually, for bash, the login shell reads .bash_profile (and only that file - you need to explicitly load your .bashrc from within that file if you want it).
> 
> Well it reads .profile if .bash_profile and .bash_login are absent ... unless in posix mode.  For anyone caring, there is a book written on this topic in the INVOCATION section of bash(1), but here's a snippet:
> 
>      When  bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-inter-
>      active shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes  com-
>      mands  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, and reads and executes commands from the first one that
>      exists and is readable.  The --noprofile option may be  used  when  the
>      shell is started to inhibit this behavior.

I am still stumped about this.
I understand everything you are describing.

My $SHELL is /bin/bash. The /etc/profile installed by Snow Leopard looks like this:

# System-wide .profile for sh(1)

if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
        eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi

if [ "${BASH-no}" != "no" ]; then
        [ -r /etc/bashrc ] && . /etc/bashrc
fi

BUT

My /etc/bashrc contains:
export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/mysql/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/libexec:."

If I open an Apple terminal, then:
> echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/mysql/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/libexec:.

If I edit ~/.xinitrc.d/99-wm.sh to run just an xterm, with no window manager, then in that xterm:
> echo $PATH
/opt/X11/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

That is the problem.

I don't have user-level files  ~/.profile,  ~/.bash_profile, or ~/.bash_login since I'm the only user of my laptop. But I shouldn't need to, if the shell is reading /etc/bashrc. When I copy /etc/bashrc to ~/.profile, etc, nothing changes. It is a launchd issue I think.

Dave