Configuration semantics

[mcandre]

.profile*, .profile_login*, .bash_profile*, and .bashrc* serve different purposes, described by Greg's dotfiles. Would be nice to help users figure out which snippets belong in which files.

[koalaman]

Do you have an example of how that would work?

[mcandre]

I imagine a workflow like this:

$ vi ~/.profile
$ shellcheck ~/.profile
~/.profile line 4:
export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/cool/scripts/bin
^ environment variables are best configured in .bashrc or .bash_profile, then sourced into the desired dotfile.

[koalaman]

It's an interesting and clever application of shellcheck, but I'm not entirely convinced by this example.

Are there any cases where this is more obviously and directly beneficial? I can see export PATH="$PATH:.." being an issue in .bashrc because it risks being executed multiple times, but even though it's weird, it's harmless.

[arth1]

I am against this; .profile is used by all bourne shell family shells, and if you move stuff out of it to .bashrc/.bash_profile, the assignments will no longer be picked up by other shells, even if you want it. I tend to use .profile, and test the shell for precisely that reason.

As for the PATH="$PATH:..." being called multiple times, here's a quick PATH cleanup that should work in all bourne family shells:

PATH=$(echo $PATH | awk '!s[$1]++' RS=: ORS=: | sed 's/:$//')
export PATH

[koalaman]

@arth1 The way to solve the issue is to move the initialization to .profile, not to set it incorrectly and then try to patch it up afterwards.