akonstam@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I need to check that my observations on bash invocation is correct.
> In the bash man page it states that when the bash shell in invoked the
> following three files are sourced: /etc/profile, ~/.bash_profile and
> ~/.profile. My observation is that when .bash_profile is present
> .profile is not sourced.
>
> This is in important to us because we have the same user directories
> mounted on FC4 machines and OS X machines, On OS X machines it looks
> like .profile is sourced even when a .bash_profile exists.
>
> I just want to check that my sanity is still in place and I am seeing
> what is really happening. I realize behavior on an OS X machine is off
> topic on a fedora list.
Good question!
man bash says:
--noprofile
Do not read either the system-wide startup file /etc/profile or
any of the personal initialization files ~/.bash_profile,
~/.bash_login, or ~/.profile. By default, bash reads these
files when it is invoked as a login shell (see INVOCATION
below).
then
When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-inter-
active shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes com-
mands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading
that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile,
in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that
exists and is readable. The --noprofile option may be used when the
shell is started to inhibit this behavior.
So your observations are consistent with documented behaviour on Fedora.
I understand that this is so users who are stuck with an earlier Bourne
shell can put bash in their .profile, create a .bash_profile, and things
will still work.
Unfortunately, I don't have access to an OS X machine.
It's possible that something in Apple's default /etc/profile or
~/.bash_profile is sourcing ~/.profile anyway. But a quick Google
suggests that this is not the case, and bash on OS X is not supposed to
run ~/.profile anyway if ~/.bash_profile exists. See, for example, Geoff
Lane's comments in
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030825001724805
(If it's the same Geoff Lane as I've come across elsewhere, he does seem
to know his stuff.)
Hope this helps,
James.
--
E-mail address: james | ... boxing the books up was a mistake: they are
@westexe.demon.co.uk | welded to the floor through the power of gravity.
| -- Telsa Gwynne's Diary.
