Re: safe way to set a path

[mmiller3@iupui.edu (Michael A. Miller)]

>>>>> "Hamish" == Hamish Moffatt <hamish@debian.org> writes:

    > Somebody recently posted a safe way for a script to append
    > to the user's path (only in the current environment). I
    > didn't keep it, but now I need it. And the list archive
    > search engine is down.  Can anyone refresh my memory?

I don't recall the message that you're referring to, but I use
the following functions:

# A function to add to PATH.  If it is already there, don't bother...
add_to_path () {
    if [ -d $1 ]; then 
	if [ ! `echo $PATH | grep $1` ]; then
	    PATH=$1:$PATH
	    export PATH
	fi
    fi 
    }
append_to_path () {
    if [ -d $1 ]; then 
	if [ ! `echo $PATH | grep $1` ]; then
	    PATH=$PATH:$1
	    export PATH
	fi
    fi 
    }

Mike