[SOLVED] change bash from terminal

[ask4nutz]

I have been temporarily changing environment variables using 'export DIR=foo' but I know there is a way to have the variable permanently set in .bashrc. Any ideas? Thanks!

[Oxyd]

Yes, you can set it permanently in .bashrc the same way you did it interactively: just put export VAR=value in your .bashrc.

Bash automatically reads and evaluates .bashrc every time you start it up, so by putting the line there, the variable will be set every time you launch new bash.

[ask4nutz]

thanks, ox. What I am actually referring to is

echo "export VAR=/path" >> .bashrc

This will append the variable to the last line of the bash without ever having to open it

cheers

[jpollard]

Blindly appending to the .bashrc makes assumptions about how the .bashrc is interpreted.

A number of them may test for the existence of a terminal, and exit. Thus, they never reach the end of the file.

For simple .bashrc implementations (just a list of assignments), that will work. For others, you need to put it in the right place - for those definitions you want available at all times need to go toward the beginning (before configuration tests of things), and not the end.