Bash:script cannot be called after adding the path

Question

I am writing my own unix scripts so I want to add a new directory for Bash. I add sth in .bash_profile like this.

PATH="~/Documents:${PATH}"
export PATH

and in my ~/Documents, there is a file named test of which the content is

#!/usr/bin/env python3.5
print("hahahhah")

I also used

chmod 755 test

to make it executable.

But I cannot call it in terminal directly. ./test works as usual. What went wrong?

After I change to

PATH="$HOME/Documents:${PATH}"
export PATH

nothing happens.

FDSM_lhn@9-53:~/Documents$ test
FDSM_lhn@9-53:~/Documents$ ./test
hahahhah

Solution: The fundamental reason is that I have a command of the same name as default one, So it won't work any way! Changing name will be sufficient!

What's in PATH? Does ~/Documents appear, or the expanded version? Unless it's the expanded version, it won't help, and I think the double quotes prevent the ~ being expanded. Add echo "$PATH" after the export PATH and see what it says. — Jonathan Leffler
– Jonathan Leffler, Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 3:37

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:23:52Z

6

Tilde doesn't get expanded inside strings. So by quoting the right-hand side of the assignment you prevent it from being expanded and get a literal ~ in your PATH variable which doesn't help you any.

You have two ways to fix this:

Drop the quotes on the assignment (yes this is safe, even for $PATH values with spaces, etc.).
Use $HOME instead of ~.

I prefer the second solution but the first is entirely valid for this case.

Beware though that in places where you aren't doing a straight assignment you often cannot just drop the quotes and trying to use ~ will cause problems.

In which case you will end up finding a question like this with an answer like this and something ugly like this.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:23

CommunityBot

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answered Nov 11, 2015 at 3:37

Etan Reisner

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4 Comments

tripleee Over a year ago

And of course, shadowing the system command test with your own unrelated program is always a bad idea.

Li haonan Over a year ago

PATH="$HOME/Documents:${PATH}" export PATH is still not working. Do I need to restart the whole computer?

Etan Reisner Over a year ago

No, but you need to do that in the shell session you are testing or load a new shell session (assuming you put that in a shell startup file). What does declare -p PATH say when it isn't working?

Li haonan Over a year ago

Oh man, the first comment help me out. The command test shadow my own test program.

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