Subject: Re: bash isn't running my .bashrc!
From: Soren A <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 16:47:50 +0000 (UTC)

Donna and Matthew Persico <[email-masked]> wrote around 27
Nov 2002 news:[email-masked]: 

> Probably because many folks have used/are using Korn shell where if, I
> think, you do 
> 
> export ENV=~/.kshrc 
> 
> then ~/.kshrc is run at each invocation, interactive or not, login or
> not. 
> 
> I think.

I kind of doubt it, myself. People who know enough about *nixy shells to
know a special env var to set for ksh to get this behavior (and BTW an
equivalent exists for bash) are not the folks who are having trouble
with THIS kind of thing, IMBG [In My Best Guess]. I think it is mostly
people coming from an MSWindows background, maybe never used Linux, who
are likely to misunderstand. 

> So, what made you decide to post this?

Scanning recent articles posted to this List. Recollection of past
experiences. Long-put-off decision to offer this info. Just because,
basically. 

I do Cygwin stuff in little bursts in the middle of other things, and
sometimes I think "I should post something about that" but then cannot
get around to it for 6 months or something. Happens. 

I felt that bash documentation I read in the past was unclear on this
point -- didn't read in an easy to understand way. The heuristic bash
uses (sorry Mr. Ramey) to decide what initialization files to source is
IMO not simple and clear for new users to grasp. It is quite baroque.

I've said before and will say again that I know cgf thinks this sort of
discussion is OT for Cygwin. By deciding so, he is basically saying "the
first thing that some new Cygwin users will grapple with, the unfamililar
bash shell, is something we won't offer them any help with." IMHO that's
a bit too rigid and demanding: "You either have to have been a bash user
already or come to this List understanding that you are expected to find
and read an entire bash manual beforehand." A bit unrealistic IMHO. 

At the same time I recognize that Chris and others don't want to
repeatedly answer the same bash newbie questions here and I wouldn't
want to see them have to. That's why I referred to the Subject: as a
"honeypot". Hopefully a new user will have at the very least tried to
search the archive for a posting that matched his or her distress. I am
hoping my posting will "lure" future archive searchers towards this
helpful information. I am sure it is very likely that Chris or someone
else will take issue, fine, I am content to let cgf have his views but I
will keep mine. 

  Best,
    Soren A
-- 
Yes, it's really Sören, not Soren.

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