Bitbar: Handling PATH

[manojlds]

PATH for the app is limited. Most commands that I want to run, like docker, are not in PATH for the app. This makes it very limited regarding what I can write in the plugins.

Would like to know what people are doing for this. I would also like to make a recommendation that PATH from login shell is somehow incorporated, as the premise is running custom scripts that work in our terminals.

[manojlds]

export PATH='/usr/local/bin:$PATH'

in the plugin is a workaround for now.

[matryer]

Perhaps you could add that to the README? It's a cool little trick.

[matryer]

Do you think this requires a change in BitBar, or is adding the path 'manually' a good solution?

[uri]

How do you export PATH if your script isn't using bash?

[alaroldai]

@uri depends on what language you're using.

A more portable solution might be to have the app pull PATH from a login shell session on reset - this is the strategy used in neovim.app (see https://github.com/rogual/neovim-dot-app/blob/master/src/app.mm)

[manojlds]

+1 to @alaroldai

[matryer]

The trouble is, which login shell should it pull from? People use different ones. And which file? .bash_profile, .bash_rc, or something else?

It seems more elegant to let the plugin developer decide what to pull in?

[alaroldai]

Well, it is possible to check which shell the user has set as their default shell. On Mac OS, you can do this with: dscl . read /Users/alaroldai UserShell | cut -f2 -d' '. There's also the OpenDirectory framework, which afaik is the underlying implementation of users, groups, shells, and lots of other stuff as well. I believe that iTerm2 uses this approach, though running dscl in a subprocess might be simpler for a quick win/proof-of-concept.

[matryer]

Are we happy that this issue is resolved in userland?

[manojlds]

Yea

[tkothe]

Just in case anybody else is wondering for a moment why @manojlds's solution above is not working for them: Use double quotes instead of single quotes so that $PATH actually gets expanded.
i.e. PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"