Environment variables in bash_profile or bashrc?

Posted by Viriato on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Viriato
Published on 2012-04-06T04:15:25Z Indexed on 2012/04/06 5:32 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 518

Filed under:

bash

|

path

|

environment-variables

|

bashrc

|

.bash-profile

I have found this question [blog]: Difference between .bashrc and .bash_profile very useful but after seeing the most voted answer (very good by the way) I have further questions. Towards the end of the most voted, correct answer I see the statement as follows :

Note that you may see here and there recommendations to either put environment variable definitions in ~/.bashrc or always launch login shells in terminals. Both are bad ideas.

Why is it a bad idea (I am not trying to fight, I just want to understand)?
If I want to set an environment variable and add it to the PATH (for example JAVA_HOME) where it would be the best place to put the export entry? in ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc?
If the answer to question number 2 is ~/.bash_profile, then I have two further questions:

3.1. What would you put under ~/.bashrc? only aliases?

3.2. In a non-login shell, I believe the ~/.bash_profile is not being "picked up". If the export of JAVA_HOME entry was in bash_profile would I be able to execute javac & java commands? Would it find them on the PATH? Is that the reason why some posts and forums suggest setting JAVA_HOME and alike to ~/.bashrc?

Thanks in advance.

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about bash

launching a program from bash causes bash to go to new prompt

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
When I run a program from the console, e.g. me@box:~$ firefox I expect the console to log error messages (I think this is std out or std err?) and other items from the program, firefox in this case. But today I notice that bash just opens the program and goes to a new prompt, e.g. me@box:~$… >>> More
How to debug a .bash_profile

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I was updating my .bash_profile, and unfortunetly I made a few updates and now I am getting: env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory -bash: tar: command… >>> More
Every command fails with "command not found" after changing .bash_profile?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I was updating my .bash_profile, and unfortunetly I made a few updates and now I am getting: env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory -bash: tar: command… >>> More
Is there any fundamental difference between piping in mac and linux?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
ps -e | grep bash sample output from a linux machine: 1128 pts/14 00:00:00 bash 7491 pts/7 00:00:00 bash 12651 pts/14 00:00:00 bash 16145 pts/2 00:00:00 bash sample output from a mac machine: 58352 ttys000 0:00.09 login -pfl username /bin/bash -c exec -la bash /bin/bash 58353 ttys000… >>> More
why is $0 set to -bash?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
First login process name seems to be set to "-bash", but if I subshell then it becomes "bash". for example: root@nowere:~# echo $0 -bash root@nowere:~# bash root@nowere:~# echo $0 bash -bash is causing some scripts to fail, such as . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule exec /usr/share/debconf/frontend… >>> More

Related posts about path

get the path of moved directory/file (source path and destination path)

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
When one directory is moved to other destination path, then i want to log the entry of original source path and entry of the path where it moved. any command is already available ? or any other way of doing this task? Ex: D1 = /home/user/Documents/test D2 = /home/user/Documents/Data/test when… >>> More
BASH: Convert absolute path into relative path given a current directory

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
absolute="/foo/bar" current="/foo/baz/foo" # magic relative="../../bar" Can you help me with magic? (Hopefully not too complicated code...) >>> More
Converting a URI path to a relative file system path in .NET

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
How do I convert an absolute or relative URI path (e.g. /foo/bar.txt) to a corresponding relative file system path (e.g. foo\bar.txt)? >>> More
How to read from path in wpf comboboxitem and write into path of binding

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, I tried to make up an example to show my problem. My combobox has a list of objects as itemssource. In my example it's a list of Persons. In the combobox i want to show the first name and the last name of the person. But i want to save the last name of the person in the "owner" property of… >>> More
Changing an xcode project Path with lowercase path issue

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a problem with an Xcode project which has a path of "/users/me/blah" with a lowercase 'u'. When I check my other projects (in the General Tab of the Project Info Window the Path starts with a uppercase "Users". This causes a couple of problems. When I try and add an existing file which is… >>> More