How can I see the current value of my $PATH variable on OS X?

macos bash path environment-variables homebrew
Karoh picture Karoh · Jan 31, 2013 · Viewed 164.4k times · Source

$ $PATH

returns:

-bash: /usr/local/share/npm/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:~/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin: No such file or directory

This seems quite ugly and might be giving me issues with getting Homebrew up and running as well.

Answer

HeatfanJohn picture HeatfanJohn · Jan 31, 2013

You need to use the command echo $PATH to display the PATH variable or you can just execute set or env to display all of your environment variables.

By typing $PATH you tried to run your PATH variable contents as a command name.

Bash displayed the contents of your path any way. Based on your output the following directories will be searched in the following order:

/usr/local/share/npm/bin
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin
/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/sbin
~/bin
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
/usr/local/bin
/opt/X11/bin
/usr/local/git/bin

To me this list appears to be complete.

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