How to restore .bash_profile on a mac? None of my unix terminal are working [closed]

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Closed 5 years ago.

I added something to my bash_profile while trying to add Playframework to my path and something got messed up badly.

I added the following line to my .bash_profile

export PATH=$PATH:the path to my play excitable 

then I saved everything and restarted my terminal. I can no longer do anything from my terminal. I can't cd into any directory, I can no longer find java, I can't open vi or nano. I found this thread on SuperUser that suggested opening a different terminal and changing the bash profile.

I tried opening bash by typing

/bin/bash

and I was successfully able to open another terminal but I still don't have access to any of the regular unix commands. I still wasn't able to open vi or nano to remove the line that is causing the problem.

I tried downloading a new terminal application without any luck.

I tried turning on hidden files so that I can just change the file with a text editor by running the following command:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

but since my terminal isn't working that didn't work either.

How can I fix my computer.

Answer 1

While this is offtopic for stackoverflow, it's also pretty simple to fix:

1. Start Terminal.app.

2. Reset $PATH:

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

3. Fix ~/.bash_profile:

   $ vi ~/.bash_profile
   

Or you can avoid setting $PATH at all with:

$ /usr/bin/vi ~/.bash_profile