On Thu, 2006-01-12 at 15:55 -0600, akonstam@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > On Thu, Jan 12, 2006 at 05:55:08PM +0000, James Wilkinson wrote: > > 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. > I agree with your analysis of the man bash on Fedora. I just wanted to > see if I was reading it correctly. > > > > 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 > > > Now the comments to refer to above have marginal relevance for the > following reason. The latest OS X 10.4 uses bash as its default shell and > I assure you that .profile is sourced even when .bash_profile exists. > But this is not an OS X list so I will not push the point. I know that on Linux a bash shell parses .profile _and_ ~/.bash_profile. I cannot speak for differences in OS X, although I would not expect any. AIUI the .profile contains configurations that are used by all and the ~/.bash_profile makes user specific modifications.
