Virtualenvwrapper not persisting between terminal windows

Question

I successfully installed Virtualenvwrapper and am able to use it after running source .bashrc: The only problem is, that the commands do not work if I start a new terminal window or if I re-start the terminal. How do I remedy this issue?

Answer 1

Short answer:

Add the following line to your .bash_profile:

source ~/.bashrc

Longer answer:

By default, Terminal starts the shell via /usr/bin/login, which makes the shell a login shell. On every platform (not just Mac OS X) bash does not use .bashrc for login shells (only /etc/profile and the first of .bash_profile, .bash_login, .profile that exists and is readable). This is why “put source ~/.bashrc in your .bash_profile” is standard advice.

(this answer was originally posted here: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/12993/why-doesnt-bashrc-run-automatically#comment13715_13019)