[csw-users] about the path name

George Wyche gw at citasystems.com
Wed Oct 3 17:26:19 CEST 2007


Adjusting the path and overriding it with soft links (the ln -s command) 
is an art. There are some strong opinions about that art. Some of the 
opinions are backed with decent explanations, but most are either just 
stated, or are too old to take into account newer security concerns, or 
are assuming a situation that does not apply to you, or don't account 
for user lack of resolve to "adhere to policy".

The fact of the matter is this: You can put /opt/csw/bin at the end of 
your path and then place soft links to any (or all) of the commands in 
/usr/local/bin which is much closer to the front of your path. When your 
shell searches for "svn" it will find it in /usr/local/bin AND WILL STOP 
LOOKING. So it overrides any "svn" that would be found in /opt/sfw/bin.

The unix "which" command will tell you which of the maybe many "svn" 
there may be on your computer would be THE ONE to be executed.

For historical reasons I use "tcsh" that has a handy command called 
"where" that looks through the entire path listing all "svn" that exist. 
Its a nice convenience to decide where to place a soft link to get the 
version that you want. [Aside: I got an eye opener when I investigated 
which tar/gtar/gnutar/star I wanted to use for my "tar".]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Now then. Why do you want /opt/csw/bin on the end?

George
Binod wrote:
> Sorry for deplayed response, and thanks george for your help.
> 
> I realized that once I set /opt/csw/bin in the very front of my path 
> then all of my svn commands worked fine.
> 
> Previously I had installed svn in /usr/local/bin which i got from 
> sunfreeware. I removed it from there and, therefore, previously when I 
> ran svn command it was trying to take svn command from that path.
> 
> It was in this format when it didnot work:
>  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> -bash-3.00$ echo $PATH
> /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/sfw/bin:/opt/csw/bin 
> 
> 
> 
> Now it is in this format and my svn commands just work fine:
>  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> -bash-3.00$ echo $PATH
> /opt/csw/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/sfw/bin: 
> 
> 
> But my question now would be is there anyway possible for me to still 
> keep /opt/csw/bin at the end of my PATH and still make my svn command work ?
> 
> Any help would be appreciated and if this is wrong place to post this 
> question any direction to the right place would also be a great help.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> On 9/26/07, *George Wyche* <gwyche at io.com <mailto:gwyche at io.com>> wrote:
> 
>     @Binod
> 
>     svn may be an alias. Do a
>       which svn
> 
>     cd /opt/csw/bin
>     ./svn
> 
>     would override any svn alias.
> 
>      > Hi I installed subversion from blastwave couple days ago
>      > and every thing is working fine. Its in sparc 10 x64.
>      >
>      > My path currently is
>      >
>      > -bash-3.00$ echo $PATH
>      > /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:\
>      > /usr/local/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/sfw/bin:/opt/csw/bin
>      >
> 
>     If you are intending on using blastwave software, then please move
>     /opt/csw/bin to occur before /usr/sfw/bin
> 
>     And you will probably have to examine /usr/local/bin closely for links
>     which might otherwise override your specified order. For example even if
>     you have /opt/csw/bin:/usr/sfw/bin, but a link in /usr/local/bin
>     *could*
>     have an gnutar which points to a gnutar in /usr/sfw/bin NOT in
>     /opt/csw/bin. That would be an override. That sort of think has given me
>     grief in the past.
> 
>      > but when I type svn I can't get it work.
>      >
>      > -bash-3.00$ svn
>      > -bash: svn: command not found
>      >
>      > But when I go to
>      >
>      > cd /opt/csw/bin and then do ./svn It works fine.
>      >
>      > I went ahead and added that /opt/csw/bin (which is a
>      > global path to my local user .profile file then svn
>      > commands just work fine)
>      >
>      > What is going wrong here ? Can anyone help me out?
>      >
>      > I think if /opt/csw/bin is in global path it should
>      > be able to run from anywhere without needing to
>      > provide detail in local.profile file , isn't
>      > thats how it works?
> 
>     That is my understanding. You could look at the permissions, owners,
>     groups, links associated with each step of the way to /opt/csw/bin/svn.
>     ls -l /
>     ls -l /opt
>     ls -l /opt/csw
>     ls -l /opt/csw/bin
>     ls -l /opt/csw/bin/svn
> 
>     Look for "strange" things.
> 
>     Is there something else in
>      >
>      > Any help will be appreciated.
>      >
>      > Thanks,
> 
> 
>     George
> 
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