How do we persist a `source bash_profile` command outside of a ruby script?

Question

What we're trying to do is call source bash_profile to reload a bash_profile file. The script grabs a person's bash_profile and load it onto a person's computer. The problem is that the source bash_profile won't persist outside the ruby script. After the script ends, the terminal looks the same as it did before. How can we make it so that source bash_profile persists outside the ruby script?

Answer 1

The bash_profile usually modifies the bash environment (installing functions, aliases, variables, readline bindings, etc.), and there is really no way to modify the environment of a parent bash process.

So the best you can do is end the ruby script by execing a new bash, specifying the -l (or --login) option to make it a login shell so that it will start by sourcing bash_profile. (You can also do this by making the first character of argument -, usually by setting it to -bash.)

If you have control over the way the ruby script is initiated, you might be able to cause it to be execed, in order that it replaces the parent bash process. That will make for a cleaner process tree.