<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><br><div><div>On Feb 7, 2015, at 4:01 AM, Luc Bourhis <<a href="mailto:luc_j_bourhis@mac.com">luc_j_bourhis@mac.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><br><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">(1) We consider /etc/paths to be a "system file". We don't like modifying system files.<br>(2) Modifying /etc/paths affects all users' settings, which is undesirable.<br></blockquote><br>Actually it is desirable, or it has at least been desired by some users, e.g.:<br><br><a href="https://trac.macports.org/ticket/36323">https://trac.macports.org/ticket/36323</a><br></blockquote><br>Note that it was suggested in this discussion you linked to add files in /etc/paths.d but that would not do what many users want because the paths listed in /etc/paths are put first in PATH and then those from /etc/paths.d are appended. Since /etc/paths lists /bin, /user/bin, etc by default, Macports paths would not override system ones. I like it the other way around and I am not the only one I think.<br><br>I am happy to see that my initial noise led to informative a discussion after all ;-)<br><br>And then there the orthogonal issue of Apps launched from the Finder which get PATH from launchd and for which neither path_helper nor shell startup files help. Once upon a time, I hacked a solution with a daemon watching .bashrc and friends to keep the PATH of the shell and that of launchd in synch but eventually I gave up and just launched the PATH-sensitive Apps with "open" from the Terminal.<br></blockquote><br></div><div><br></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#222222" face="Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 19px;">~/.launchd.conf (or /etc/launchd.conf systemwide) can provide ways to set the PATH for the per-user launchd instances. See launchctl man page for the latter - basically a setenv key value launchctl command. There also used to be </span></font></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#222222" face="Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 19px;">~/.MacOSX/environment.plist, (see </span></font></span><a href="https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPRuntimeConfig/Articles/EnvironmentVars.html">https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPRuntimeConfig/Articles/EnvironmentVars.html</a> ), but reports suggest that’s no longer used since Lion (or possibly Mountain Lion).</div><div><br></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#222222" face="Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 19px;"><br></span></font></span></div></body></html>