Hello,

I am new to this board and I have several questions:

For two days now I've been trying to add a variable to my "path" -- without any success. What I want to do is add the path for my MySQL database to my "path" so I can access it from anywhere. Why is this such a hard thing to do in UNIX? Everybody recommends something else. WHERE do I have to add the path. Is the file called ".bash-profile" or ".cshrs" or ".shrs" or ".profile" or what? And, if you can give me an ultimate answer to my question, where exactly is this file located on the system?

I have been a computer science student at uni for 3 years now, but nothing has ever caused me so much trouble. Such an easy task, but so hard to do, so many possible combinations!! Why??

Can anybody tell me how to do it?

Well if you are using a sh/bash/ksh shell then do the following:
cd <enter>

ls -lrta <enter>

vi .profile

Look for the following line and add the path you want after the :
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:/var/juno/bin:/usr/sbin/ifconfig:

After you save and exit out of your .profile then do the following so you changes can take effect:

source .profile <enter>

or use
export PATH=$PATH:<your additions seperated with colons>:

on command line and will be valid for the session only

About UNIX shell differences and overview pls read THIS And about .profile, .login files, these files are located in user's home directory, which is most probably /home/username, list the contents of user's home directry with ls -a and you can see these files there. And which file to modify, its very simple not so complex, check the login shell of user with command: Last field tells you the login shell of the user, in case of ksh, bash or sh you have to modify .profile to set the path and in case of csh it is .login.

Hope it helps!

Best Regards,
Tayyab

OK, thanks. I did what you said, but still MySQL can't be found. My .profile now looks exactly like this:

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/usr/local/

But when I type "which mysql" <enter>

I still get this:

no mysql in /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin /usr/local/bin /Users/timo/usr/local/ /usr/local/bin

Can it be that there are different files setting my path? I can't really see a connection between the path I set and the error message I get.