The PATH
is an important concept when working on the command line. It's a list
of directories that tell your operating system where to look for programs, so
that you can just write script
instead of /home/me/bin/script
or
C:\Users\Me\bin\script
. But different operating systems have different ways to
add a new directory to it:
- The first step depends which version of Windows you're using:
- If you're using Windows 8 or 10, press the Windows key, then search for and select "System (Control Panel)".
- If you're using Windows 7, right click the "Computer" icon on the desktop and click "Properties".
- Click "Advanced system settings".
- Click "Environment Variables".
- Under "System Variables", find the
PATH
variable, select it, and click "Edit". If there is noPATH
variable, click "New". - Add your directory to the beginning of the variable value followed by
;
(a semicolon). For example, if the value wasC:\Windows\System32
, change it toC:\Users\Me\bin;C:\Windows\System32
. - Click "OK".
- Restart your terminal.
- Open the
.bash_profile
file in your home directory (for example,/Users/your-user-name/.bash_profile
) in a text editor. - Add
export PATH="your-dir:$PATH"
to the last line of the file, where your-dir is the directory you want to add. - Save the
.bash_profile
file. - Restart your terminal.
- Open the
.bashrc
file in your home directory (for example,/home/your-user-name/.bashrc
) in a text editor. - Add
export PATH="your-dir:$PATH"
to the last line of the file, where your-dir is the directory you want to add. - Save the
.bashrc
file. - Restart your terminal.
Sometimes, I noticed modifying the .bashrc file doesn't work instead,
Adding the new PATH in .zshrc file (which is the default shell for MacOs) works for me.
add a new line in the file $HOME/.zshrc:
#for example
export PATH="your-bin-dir:$PATH"
then run
source $HOME/.zshrc
to reflesh the file