CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashterminalpath
Sergey Brin
Sergey Brin

Reputation: 93

How/where can I save Bash scripts on my computer so that my terminal can execute more commands?

Terminal/Bash has a default set of commands, such as cp, echo, grep,...

I'd like to be able to add a command, like "hello" that I can execute and get a result instead of -bash: hello: command not found.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 949

Answers (2)

Alexej Magura
Alexej Magura

Reputation: 5129

You can add custom functions to your .bashrc or if you mean actual stand-alone applications, then you could make a directory such as ~/bin and then add it to the $PATH variable in your .bash_profile or .profile and put any stand-alone applications in said ~/bin directory.

Greg's Wiki is a pretty reliable source for information on functions and other aspects of Bash, along with the Bash Manual and the Bash Hackers Wiki.

NOTE:

If you have a .profile you can still use .bash_profile, if you choose not to use .bash_profile, please be sure to encapsulate any code for Bash within an if-statement since .profile is used by other shells:

if [ -n "$BASH_VERSION" ]; then # BASH_VERSION is defined, therefore we are using BASH
  # BASH CODE
fi

To simplify things you could even create functions allowing you to easily run one-liners depending on which shell you're running:

ifbash()
{
   if [ -n "$BASH_VERSION" ]; then
     $@
    else
     return 1
   fi
}

ifzsh()
{
   if [ -n "$ZSH_VERSION" ]; then
     $@
   else
     return 1
   fi
}

# You can use these to conditionally execute commands
# here's a function that prints the type/blueprint of a function
fn-printout()
{
   for y in "$@"; do
     ifbash type "$y" || ifzsh whence -f "$y"
   done
}

(Note: while using [ TEST ] is not recommended when using Bash, other shells may not understand [[ TEST ]]; this is one reason why it is better to simply use .bash_profile, instead of .profile)

As pointed out in some comments, while you can define variables such as $PATH in your .bashrc, it is not necessarily recommended as this will cause said variable to be re-set every time you start an interactive session of Bash, resulting in unnecessary computational steps every time you start a new interactive session--it's better to store variables and other environmental changes that only need happen once (such as at login) in .bash_profile, or .profile, which can then be re-sourced as needed using bash -l.

Upvotes: 4

nbari
nbari

Reputation: 26985

You just need to modify your current PATH and give priority to the paths you care more, for example, you could have a directory in your $HOME/mycommands and a PATH like this:

PATH="$HOME/mycomands:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin" ...

in $HOME/mycommands you could have your custom commands that will be called first instead of the ones defined on your system

Upvotes: 0

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