Better PATH setup

[ydeedido@…]

There must be a reason for doing things the way they are but I prefer to add the path to the /etc/paths.d directory (instead of modifying the user profile which only works for that user). Since macports is installed under /opt/include which is not a user specific directory, would it not be better to make the PATH environment work for all users? (I often login as root)

Anyway, the suggestion is to create a file called 99_MacPorts under /etc/paths.d which only contains two lines:

/opt/local/bin
/opt/local/sbin

When one wants to un-install MacPorts, simply delete that file.

I like to name all my files under /etc/paths.d with a number so the paths get added by numerical order. In my case 99_MacPorts is parsed last and thus the path is appended at the end of my PATH variable though I seem to understand some people like it first? Then name it 01_MacPorts.

Anyway, just a suggestion.. unless I'm missing something.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

This was debated years ago and found to be unsuitable because a path in /etc/paths.d appends to the existing list of paths, whereas to achieve the functionality our users expect, we want to prepend to the path.