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

[Marius Hofert <marius.hofert@math.ethz.ch>]

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. 

Cheers,

Marius


> 
> If you have a .profile,.bash_profile,
> or .bashrc, you can echo the path at the very top of each and open a new term window.  This will
> tell you where / how PATH is being set as it goes through your sequence of login scripts.
> 
> Hope this helps,
> pedz
>