Skip to main content
Unix & Linux

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

Required fields*

11
  • It would be better, if iterate items in $PATH reversely, because the later ones are newly added usually, and they might have the value up to date. Commented Sep 3, 2016 at 6:48
  • 7
    @EricWang I don't understand your reasoning. PATH elements are traversed from front to back, so when there are duplicates, the second duplicate is effectively ignored. Iterating from back to front would change the order. Commented Sep 3, 2016 at 10:50
  • 7
    @EricWang In that case, the added value has no effect so should be ignored. By going backwards, you're making the added value come before. If the added value had been supposed to go before, it would have been added as PATH=x:$PATH. Commented Sep 3, 2016 at 15:42
  • 1
    @DonHatch My own .profile is even more complicated than that (it has complex stuff to sort both existing and added entries), but not everyone needs the complexity. I generally prefer to present possibilities in order of increasing complexity. Commented Nov 24, 2017 at 21:28
  • 2
    @DonHatch I want to keep it because it serves the needs of most people. I do point out that it assumes that there are no duplicates at the beginning, what more do you want? The order of addition is a different issue which is not mentioned in the question and not solved by the duplicate removal code. Commented Nov 24, 2017 at 21:54