How can I configure eshell to be able to run programs from directories in PATH env variable?
How can I add additional custom directories to the list?
I use Emacs 24.3.1.
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5 Answers
The Emacs equivalent of the PATH environment variable is exec-path, which is a list instead of a colon-separated string.
Its content it initialized with the value of PATH, so supposedly it should be all transparent. But if this happens not to contain what you want (typically when Emacs is not run from a shell, but from a Desktop Environment), you might find this package useful: exec-path-from-shell. Install it from Marmalade or MELPA using
M-x package-install exec-path-from-shell RET
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2If Emacs doesn't get your custom PATH when you start it from your desktop environment, it's because you didn't set your custom PATH in the right place. Set environment variables in
.profile, not in.bashrc. Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 18:21 -
Copying
export PATH=...to~/.profiledid not work for me. I still seePATHset to value created by desktop environment. Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 20:45 -
1@Gilles That's good advice generally, but doesn't help on OS X, where the user's shell is not involved in starting GUI apps such as Emacs.app. Commented Sep 30, 2014 at 13:03
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@Gilles Adding things to
$PATHdoes not make eshell see them, at least not on my system. Commented Feb 11, 2018 at 18:38
You can configure TRAMP to respect the PATH variable on the remote machine (for remote eshell sessions) by adding 'tramp-own-remote-path to the list 'tramp-remote-path:
(add-to-list 'tramp-remote-path 'tramp-own-remote-path)
By default, eshell will not adopt the remote PATH settings.
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I don't see that this works. Perhaps, that's because I set and export a custom PATH in
~/.bash_profile(contrary to~/.profile) which I have seen in some docs concerning thesetramp-*vars... Commented Jan 26, 2015 at 20:03 -
I've asked specifically the question about eshell+tramp: emacs.stackexchange.com/q/7673/5165 If you have ideas why this might not work for me, I'd be grateful if you write about it there. Commented Jan 26, 2015 at 20:15
For a clear answer to part 2 (How can I add additional custom directories to the list?):
You can use the following elisp to customize your exec-path variable to include any additional directories
(add-to-list 'exec-path "/custom/directory/path")
Use case
Although the other answers specify how to add to your $PATH (%PATH% on Windows) there are cases where this is not really a solution, particularly in a Windows environment.
Suppose you have Cygwin installed and do not want to include c:\cygwin\bin in %PATH% (user or system) because it will overwrite certain DOS built-in commands (Find) and could break any scripts that call them.
Adding it directly to exec-path within Emacs on startup can ensure you get full access to those tools within the editor, without installing Cygwin Emacs.
answered Sep 30, 2014 at 11:52
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Does not seem to work in Emacs 28.2 anymore. I have customized
exec-pathbut the directories in which Eshell'swhichis searching does not change.– cevingCommented Nov 30, 2022 at 11:31
To answer to your first question: Eshell is already able to run programs in PATH. Here's an example:
Welcome to the Emacs shell
~ $ env-info
manuel@bebop
OS: LinuxBBQ Haggis
Uptime: 0d 4h 9m
Shell: /bin/zsh
WM: ratpoison
Disk: 37G / 257G
Mem: 1180M / 4042M
Kernel: Linux 3.16-2-686-pae i686
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T6400 @ 2.00GHz
~ $ which env-info
/home/manuel/bin/env-info
~ $ echo $PATH | grep bin
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games:/home/manuel/bin
For an even clearer answer to part 2 (How can I add additional custom directories to the list?): [this adds the current directory]
addpath (pwd)
or to add something relative to your current directory
addpath $(pwd)subdir1/subdir2
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/eshell.html
