Re: Eliminate environment variable hints?

[Dan Frumin <dfrumin@cs.ru.nl>]

Hi,

I just wanted to add that I use an interactive shell with a different syntax (fish),
so I cannot just source a bsh script from my shell rc (AFAIK). To that extent having Guix print the exact variables I should be setting is actually 
quite useful.

Best,
Dan

On 04-03-19 22:56, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> skribis:
> 
>> when installing a package into a profile Guix very helpfully tells you
>> that you may need to set certain environment variables.  It doesn’t tell
>> you that these environment variables can also be set by source’ing the
>> generated etc/profile file.
>>
>> I have seen the bashrc and bash_profile files of many users and they are
>> usually full of conflicting environment variable definitions.  In these
>> files I often also see these Guix recommendations.
>>
>> I think Guix should suggest sourcing the generated etc/profile file
>> instead of listing explicit environment variable definitions.  It would
>> be less noisy and less confusing, in my opinion.
>>
>> What do you think?
> 
> When (re)sourcing etc/profile, you might clutter some variables.  For
> instance, if you do that several times, you can end up with:
> 
>    PATH=$HOME/.guix-profile/bin:$HOME/.guix-profile/bin:$HOME/.guix-profile/bin:…
> 
> Conversely, the hint upon installation disappears if the entry is
> already present in the variable.
> 
> That’s a fine point but I occasionally rely on this as a user.
> 
> That said, I understand your concern.  What about changing the message
> to:
> 
>    You might need to run:
> 
>       . …/etc/profile
> 
>    Alternately, you can define the following environment variables:
> 
>       …
> 
> Too verbose?  Confusing?
> 
> Thanks,
> Ludo’.
>