Re: Emacs on Mac 10.7 (Lion): how to get PATH as in terminal?

[Perry Smith <pedzsan@gmail.com>]

On Oct 23, 2011, at 4:57 PM, Marius Hofert wrote:

> 
> On 2011-10-23, at 23:17 , Perry Smith wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On Oct 23, 2011, at 3:58 PM, Marius Hofert wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> I know this is an old problem, but I still couldn't figure it out with the tricks I found.
>>> I work with the emacs 23.3 on Mac OS X 10.7.2 (Lion), installed from http://emacsformacosx.com/
>>> When I open a shell with M-x shell and type echo $PATH, I get:
>>> /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
>>> When I do the same in Mac's Terminal, I get:
>>> /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/texbin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin
>>> 
>>> Question: How do I get the same PATH in emacs than in the terminal?
>>> 
>>> Trials:
>>> 
>>> 1) fixpath.el:
>>> (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/fixpath"); see https://svn.fsg.ulaval.ca/svn-pub/vgoulet/emacs-modified/macos/tags/Emacs-23.3-modified-3/fixpath.el
>>> (require 'fixpath)
>>> 
>>> 2) emacs wiki (http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsApp#toc2)
>>> ;; add "defaults..." to /etc/profile:
>>> if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
>>>       eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
>>>       defaults write $HOME/.MacOSX/environment PATH "$PATH"
>>> fi
>>> ;; add the following to .emacs:
>>> (add-to-list 'exec-path "/usr/bin")
>>> 
>>> 3) another solution posted on the emacs wiki page:
>>> ;; read in PATH from .bashrc (and add at least those directories)
>>> ;; see http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsApp#toc5
>>> (if (not (getenv "TERM_PROGRAM"))
>>>   (setenv "PATH"
>>>           (shell-command-to-string "source $HOME/.bashrc && printf $PATH")))
>> 
>> I did not download the emacs that you did and dig around so I am sorta half guessing.
>> 
>> Recently while dinking with rvm, I discovered that bash is not being started with --login.
>> 
>> Since the M-x shell has fewer parts in its path, I would suspect that the additional
>> paths are being specified in /etc/profile.  Without bash thinking it is a login shell,
>> /etc/profile is not being sourced.  One way is to start it with a - as the first character in
>> arg0.  The other way is to start it with --login.
> 
> Dear Perry,
> 
> thanks a lot for helping. 
> 
>> 
>> To explore if this is right: find where the parts for longer path are being set.  One
>> choice is /etc/profile, another is your ~/.profile.  
> 
> sorry, I should have put this in earlier. So here is my /etc/profile [you still see the defaults write... from one of my trials]:
> 
> ### /etc/profile ###
> 
> # System-wide .profile for sh(1)
> 
> if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
> 	eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
>        defaults write $HOME/.MacOSX/environment PATH "$PATH"
> fi
> 
> if [ "${BASH-no}" != "no" ]; then
> 	[ -r /etc/bashrc ] && . /etc/bashrc
> fi
> 
> ###############
> 
> Here is ~/.profile [the last export is to call the same emacs when typing "emacs" in the Mac's terminal; otherwise, the preinstalled (old) emacs version is called]:
> 
> ### ~/.profile ###
> 
> [ -f ~/.bashrc ] && . ~/.bashrc;
> 
> # MacPorts Installer addition on 2011-09-30_at_10:26:19: adding an appropriate PATH variable for use with MacPorts.
> export PATH=$PATH:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin
> # Finished adapting your PATH environment variable for use with MacPorts.
> 
> # make /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/emacs available when calling "emacs"
> export PATH=/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/:$PATH
> 
> ###############
> 
> 
>> If these parts are in the profile but
>> not in your .bashrc, then we are likely on the right track.
> 
> My .bashrc only contains some aliases and export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 
> 
>> 
>> If that is the case, then review explicit-bash-args.  You can customize them and add --login
>> see if that works.  I'm a bit surprised this isn't done in the stock version of the code.
> 
> Thanks for the hint!!! I found this (see http://www-stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~buja/STAT-540/.emacs):
> (setq explicit-bash-args (list "--login" "-i"))
> I put it into .emacs and started emacs again. M-x shell now shows precisely the same PATH as in the terminal.
> The only thing I'm wondering is: If this is really the perfect solution, why is it not mentioned on http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsApp ? It seems to be much simpler than the other solutions posted, and (as I wrote) the other solutions even did not work for me. 

Yea.  I bumped into this recently.  I'm surprised that it does not kick off the shell using "-sh" as argv[0] since some shells *only* grok that method of starting a login shell.

I guess the emacs developers do not see *shell* as a "login" shell.

LIke you, I'm surprised.

pedz