Reputation: 6485

brew doctor says "Error: /usr/bin occurs before /usr/local/bin" how to fix?

Adams-MacBook-Pro% brew doctor                                 

Error: /usr/bin occurs before /usr/local/bin
This means that system-provided programs will be used instead of those
provided by Homebrew. The following tools exist at both paths:

    clusterdb
    createdb
    createlang
    createuser
    dropdb
    droplang
    dropuser
    ecpg
    git
    git-cvsserver
    git-receive-pack
    git-shell
    git-upload-archive
    git-upload-pack
    gitk
    pg_config
    pg_dump
    pg_dumpall
    pg_restore
    pg_upgrade
    psql
    reindexdb
    vacuumdb

Consider amending your PATH so that /usr/local/bin
is ahead of /usr/bin in your PATH.

Here is my path:

Adams-MacBook-Pro% echo $PATH                                  
/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin

I thought it was dangerous to move things to the front? How do I solve this problem? Also, I'm not even sure where to find where /user/bin is declared in the path.

Thanks

Upvotes: 39

Answers (9)

kumatchi

Reputation: 1

I'm using linuxbrew with wsl and got a similar error warning.

### .zshrc ###
export PATH="$PATH:/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin"
export PATH="$PATH:/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/sbin"

The problem was that $PATH was written at the beginning. The description has been changed as follows.

### .zshrc ###
export PATH="/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin:$PATH"
export PATH="/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/sbin:$PATH"

After running source ~/.zshrc, I ran brew doctor and the error disappeared.

Upvotes: 0

Lelouchcr

Reputation: 500

I found another way to solve this.

sudo vim /etc/paths

and add /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin like this

/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/sbin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin

open a new terminal tab, and then you will see

~ $ env|grep PATH
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin

Upvotes: 23

Даниил Пронин

Reputation: 1306

You need to restart your Terminal after any change with $PATH.

Upvotes: 1

Slahser

Reputation: 31

Maybe OP's using zsh.
The way to solve it is edit the ~/.zshrc everytime you open iterm will load this file.
Change the words about PATH.

Upvotes: 3

Dean

Reputation: 9128

$PATH is just a variable containing a string. To put something in front:

% PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
% echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin

This is not dangerous, since it only applies to the current shell you have open (it will not affect the path for your system or other shells).

To change the path automatically for all shells you open, put it in ~/.profile. You can create this file if it doesn't already exist.

In ~/.profile:

homebrew=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin
export PATH=$homebrew:$PATH

export makes the variable available to any child processes of the shell.

Upvotes: 50

iceturk22

Reputation: 351

Just run the following line in your favorite terminal application:

echo export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH" >> ~/.bash_profile

Restart your terminal and run

brew doctor

the issue should be resolved

Upvotes: 11

Mojo

Reputation: 2687

If you really want to make it permanent and default, edit the file /etc/paths (using sudo) and move /usr/local/bin to the top of the list.

In my own .bash_profile I use a script called "pathadd" that prevents my PATH from getting unwieldy and full of duplicates when shells are forked. So I took the /etc/paths action specifically to avoid having duplicate directories in the PATH by adding /usr/local/bin to the front again and again.

Upvotes: 2