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
PATHvariable, select it, and click "Edit". If there is noPATHvariable, 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_profilefile in your home directory (for example,/Users/your-user-name/.bash_profile) in a text editor. - Add
export PATH="your-dir:$PATH"to the last line of the file, where your-dir is the directory you want to add. - Save the
.bash_profilefile. - Restart your terminal.
- Open the
.bashrcfile in your home directory (for example,/home/your-user-name/.bashrc) in a text editor. - Add
export PATH="your-dir:$PATH"to the last line of the file, where your-dir is the directory you want to add. - Save the
.bashrcfile. - Restart your terminal.
SUMMARY
(For who came from LunarVim doc)
Step 1: Open your
.bashrcfileUse a text editor of your choice to open the
.bashrcfile. In this example, I'll use thenanoeditor:Step 2: Add the directory to the PATH
In the opened
.bashrcfile, go to the last line and add the following:Step 3: Save and exit
After adding the line to the file, save your changes by pressing
Ctrl + O, then press Enter. To exit the editor, pressCtrl + X.Now, the specified directory is added to your PATH. This means that executable programs in the specified directory can be executed from any location in the terminal without needing to provide the full path.