Why do I need to source bash_profile every time

Question

I have installed Hadoop and every time I want to run it, first I have to do this:

source ~/.bash_profile

or it won't recognize the command hadoop

Why is that?

I am on OSX 10.8

Answer 1

Now that we've narrowed down the problem:

1. Run ps -p $$ at the command line to determine that you are, in fact, using a bash shell.
2. Realize that you are in zsh, which means you should be editing your profile in .zshrc.
3. Copy the offending lines from .bash_profile to .zsh, OR
4. Modify your .zshrc to directly source your .bash_profile.

UPDATE: Do what @TC1 mentions in the comments and keep the shell-specific code in each shell's own profile, and from those profiles, only source shell-agnostic code.

Answer 2

On Mac Catalina, I just had to open "preferences" on terminal and change the "shells open with" from "default" to "Command(complete path)", which the default path was "/bin/zsh". touch ~/.zshrc, if that file doesn't exist already, and copy/paste your stuff from ".bash_profile" into the ".zshrc" file.

Answer 3

bash_profile.sh is applicable for bash shell. if your default shell is not bash and if your default shell is someother shell for example zsh then you have to manually load the .bash_profile using source ~/.bash_profile.

You can always change the default shell to bash shell so that the .bash_profile file will be automatically loaded.

Inorder to automatically load .bash_profile, you can update your default shell to bash using the command chsh -s /bin/bash

cat /etc/shells will list the default shells available in the machine

echo $SHELL will display the currently active shell in your machine

To change active shell to a different shell, use chsh -s /bin/bash. Then echo $SHELL to verify if the shell has changed.

Answer 4

Terminal -> Preference -> profile -> Shell -> Run command : source ~/.bash_profile

Tick on run inside shell.

After doing all those , just logout and check weather everything works fine or not

Answer 5

I tried the approved answer. Changing the .zshrc file works for one of my machines. But for the other one, when I run ps -p $$, it is -sh under the command. And I changed both bash and zsh files, neither of them works for me this time.

So I found this https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-Startup-Files.html

it mentioned "When Bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. "

so I went to that file /etc/profile and add "source ~/.bashrc" in that file. Then it works since every time a terminal is opened, it runs the command in that /etc/profile file.

Answer 6

Not sure if this is the best solution but it works.

sudo nano /etc/bashrc and change that, restarted the terminal and it finally remembered with command. Tried ~/.bash_profile and ~/.bashrc without success, just wasn't sourcing it.

Answer 7

Go to “Preferences/Profiles then look in the right window and find “shell”.

Once in that if your “Startup Run Command” hasn’t been turned on. Click the box to turn it on and in the command section type:

(If you made a .zsh file)

source .zsh ; clear 

(If you made a .bash_profile)

source .bash_profile ; clear

Doing this ; clear

Will clear your terminal to a new page so that you don’t see your terminal display:

“Last login: etc 
User@user-Mac ~ % source .zsh

If you typed the commands as I said you should just get this:

User@user-Mac ~ % 

That way you will be greeted with a clear page with no extra jumbo. Also to make sure that your .zsh or .bash_profile aliases work type the following command to see a list of your custom aliases:

Alias 

One alias I like to do is

alias LL=“ls -la”

This will display a tree or the directory you are in as well as hidden files.