Unix: Visual QuickStart Guide

Adding to your bash path

One of the most useful changes you can make to your environment is adding to the default path, which is determined by the path statement. The path statement tells the shell where to look for commands, scripts, and programs. That is, if you issue a command, the path statement tells the system to look in each of the named directories in a specific order.

Be sure not to remove anything from your path unless you really know what you're doing, but feel free to add as many additional directories as you want to it.

As the following steps show, you change your bash path by first identifying where your path statement is located, then editing the file that contains it (Code Listing 8.6).

To change your bash path:

1.	more ~/.bash_profile ...