path-sanitizer

README

path-sanitizer

• Purpose
• Examples
• Installation

Purpose

path-sanitizer is a tiny utility to make configuring $PATH a bit easier in shell resource files, such as ~/.profile, ~/.zprofile and so on. path-sanitizer examines the current $PATH value, adds command-line stated directories to it, and sanitizes it so that there are no double entries. The new $PATH setting is printed to stdout so that it can be evaluated in a shell startup script.

Examples

Add to your bash startup script:

# ~/.profile: Add . (dot), $HOME/bin, /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin to $PATH
source <(/where/ever/path-sanitizer -s bash $HOME /usr/local)
#                                                 ^ adds /usr/local/bin if found and /usr/local/sbin
#                                           ^ adds $HOME/bin if it exists, and $HOME/sbin
#                                    ^ intended shell, generates `export PATH=...`

Add to your fish startup script:

# ~/.config/fish/config.fish example
eval "$(/where/ever/path-sanitizer -s fish $HOME /usr/local)"
#                                     ^ intended shell, generates `set -gx ...`

Wheter to use source or eval depends on your shell. Fortunately, path-sanitizer -h shows examples for the most common shells.

Installation

• Clone the repo: git clone https://github.com/KarelKubat/path-sanitizer
• In the obtained source tree, run go install path-sanitizer.go
• Try it out: Assuming that you need to add e.g. /usr/local/bin to your path, run: path-sanitizer -s zsh /usr/local, and examine the output (this example assumes zsh format, adjust as needed).
• Edit your shell's startup script as shown above.