help: path variables...huh?

[T. 'Nifty New Hat' Mitchell]

On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 04:30:11PM -0700, Scott Talbot wrote:
> On Sat, 2004-06-19 at 18:03, javac javac wrote:
> > i'm running FC1 and've never understood the path variable stuff.  when i type "pine" or "pico" at the terminal i get the expected response, but...
> > 
> > to use the java compiler i have to enter the full path, along the lines of:
> > 
> > /home/net/j2../javac foo.java
> > 
> > which seems a bit much.  what i want is to "javac foo.java"
> > without all that path info.
...
> 
> 	An alternative, since you only have the one executable file in the j2re
> directory is to make a link from some place normally on the PATH, i.e.
> ln -s /home/myname/...j3re/jfac  /usr/bin/javac

Or a simple bash alias.
   alias javac='/home/net/j2../javac '
   (inspect this stuff /etc/profile.d/* )

Or a wrapper in a famous (local) place.

A shell wrapper can be valuable to setup local environment variables
and pass to some tools a long list of environment variables that the
system or package admin has control of.  The best of the bad examples
might be mozilla or netscape.  So what do the 120 lines of my
/usr/local/netscape/netscape do one might ask.

Complex environments like Java often need version specific libraries
and other support tools. So what do the 60 lines of shell code in my
/usr/bin/javac do one might ask.

Lots of ways to skin a cat.... here is a nifty way to find some.

  $ find /bin /usr/bin /sbin | xargs file | egrep "Bourne|symbolic" | less

Have fun...



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