CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashpathlldb
Leedehai
Leedehai

Reputation: 3940

LLDB with Python problem: set PATH exclusively for one executable?

Is there a way of set the PATH variable exclusively for one executable in bash script?

I want to do so because somehow macOS's LLDB requires system-intalled Python, not my Anaconda-managed Python, therefore I need to ensure /usr/bin is at the beginning of PATH. But I prefer Anaconda-managed Python for everyday use, so I don't want to set PATH permanently just to accommodate LLDB.

Temporarily manually writing PATH before and after using LLDB is cumbersome, so I'm thinking about some kind of wrapper script or alias that automates this routine.

P.S. LLDB has the same problem with Homebrew-managed Python.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 166

Answers (1)

tripleee
tripleee

Reputation: 189387

Environment variables are, by definition, per-process. Each process has a copy of the environment which it can modify for its own reasons.

To override the PATH just for a single invocation, all sh-compatible shells allow you to say

PATH=newvalue executable with arguments

which sets PATH to newvalue for the duration of the execution of executable with arguments, then reverts the value back to its previous state (the current value, or unset if it was unset).

If you want to override something in the environment every time you execute something, you need a wrapper. Assuming you have /usr/local/bin before /usr/bin in your PATH, you could install this in /usr/local/bin/something to override /usr/bin/something with a wrapper:

#!/bin/sh
PATH=newvalue
exec /usr/bin/something "$@"

Remember chmod a+x and of course you need to be root to have write access to this directory in the first place.

For your private needs, a shell function in your .profile or similar is sufficient.

something () {
    PATH=newvalue command something "$@"
}

Upvotes: 1

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