Add a single Bash command

Question

I do not have su access and I have a perl executable in ~/et directory which is called exiftool.

I need to add that executable to bash commands (so that I can type exiftool instead of ~/et/exiftool).

The problem is that ~/et contains other files that are not executable (so I cannot use export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/et). Is there any alternative?

Actually you can add ~/et to your PATH even if there are non-executable files in there. Bash is smart enough to not execute them. — John Meagher
– John Meagher, Commented Aug 5, 2009 at 16:55

bdonlan · Accepted Answer · 2009-08-05 16:49:05Z

8

You could use an alias:

alias exiftool=~/et/exiftool

Or you can symlink it elsewhere and add that directory to your path:

mkdir -p ~/bin
ln -s ~/et/exiftool ~/bin
PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH

answered Aug 5, 2009 at 16:49

bdonlan

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8 Comments

Cascabel Over a year ago

Any method that uses PATH is preferable, be it symlinking as described or installing executables into a bin directory.

William Pursell Over a year ago

Why symlink? just move the file into ~/bin

bdonlan Over a year ago

I'm assuming there's some reason for it to be in ~/et

collimarco Over a year ago

PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH does search in bin before default path? Or vice versa?

Eugene Over a year ago

Just don't make a text file in /home/collimarco/et/ and call it ls or something :)

|

Lara Bailey · Accepted Answer · 2009-08-05 17:01:00Z

1

I don't understand why having files that are not executable in the directory prevents you from adding the directory to your PATH anyway?

As an alternative, though, you can use an alias.

alias exiftool=$HOME/et/exiftool

You can place this in your .bashrc to have it always available.

edited Aug 5, 2009 at 17:01

answered Aug 5, 2009 at 16:50

Lara Bailey

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Comments

Freme · Accepted Answer · 2009-08-05 16:51:46Z

0

softlink to a folder in PATH
alias exiftool='~/et/exiftool'

answered Aug 5, 2009 at 16:51

Freme

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