Why isn't the shell reading from Bash startup files?

Question

I'm just trying to do the simple task of adding my MySQL directory to the PATH variable so that I can use the mysql, etc. commands in my terminal on my Mac OS X 10.6.6 (Snow Leopard). After altering the .profile, .bash_profile, and even creating a .bashrc, and making sure that my path has been inputted correctly, every time I try running the mysql command, or hitting

echo $PATH

gives me the same exact results:

/Users/GabbAHH/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p136@rails3tutorial/bin:/Users/GabbAHH/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p136@global/bin:/Users/GabbAHH/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/bin:/Users/GabbAHH/.rvm/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/X11/bin

As you can see, no MySQL. Later, I realize that this isn't really the problem since I removed all three of those files from my /Users/GabbAHH/ user directory, and I still get the same result!

Right now, the script inside my startup files look like this:

export PATH=/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH

export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH"

Was there something I've done that made my Terminal bypass these startup files? Is it just reading from the /etc/profile folder?

Does that give the same result? Regardless, I've interchanged them.

Also, how do I tell if I'm using an interactive or non-interactive shell, and a log-in/non log-in shell? I seem to be able to create folders, etc. without a prompt to input my password, although I remember prior I had to sudo a lot of commands when installing gems for Ruby, etc. Also, I did need to input my password when turning MySQL on/off.

Answer 1

Just put:

echo HELLO, I AM HERE

in your startup script and login as per normal.

If you find that the string is not printing out then, yes, you're bypassing that script.

Beyond that, you should tell us which script you're putting it in since bash has some ... rather wondrous ... rules for deciding which scripts get run :-) You can get the details from the INVOCATION section of man bash. My particular version goes on for about 50 lines (and that's with a 150-column xterm) so I won't bore you by posting it here.

Suffice to say it's complicated.

For example, you may be being bitten by the fact that bash will only execute the first of ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile that exists and is readable. It may be a non-interactive shell where the rules are different. You may be running the shell with --noprofile or --norc or --rcfile=whatever or --posix.

The possibilities, while not endless, are damnably annoying.

Answer 2

My issue was the existence of a .bash_profile, so I made my changes by modifying there. All it was doing before was setting up my JAVA_HOME and a GROOVY_HOME...so I added my changes to the end of that file and now all is working great.

Thanks!