etc/paths modifications not taken into account in OS X Mountain Lion

Question

I installed node.js, pip, rvm a few weeks ago. I just installed them and checked everything was working fine.

Yesterday, as I tried to install howdoi (https://github.com/gleitz/howdoi) using zsh via pip, I got a pip : command not found error message.

The echo $PATH command gave me this:

"rvm stuffs":/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin: 

Then, I checked the etc/paths file:

/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin

It looks like /usr/local/bin is in my etc/paths file but not in my path.

I temporarily fixed this with a temporary solution:

export PATH=$PATH:/etc/paths

This morning, I am looking for a permanent solution.

Answer 1

You could add this to your ~/.profile, ~/.bashrc, or ~/.bash_profile. In Terminal:

cat << EOF >> ~/.profile
PATH=/usr/local/bin:\$PATH; export PATH
EOF

Open a new Terminal (Command + N) and test the change:

echo $PATH