What is the difference between ~ . profile and ~ . bash_profile? The was the original profile configuration for the Bourne shell (a k a , ) , being a Bourne compatible shell will read and use it The on the other hand is only read by It is intended for commands that are incompatible with the standard Bourne shell
bash - What is the difference between . profile and . bash_profile and . . . The profile dates back to the original Bourne shell known as sh Since the GNU shell bash is (depending on its options) a superset of the Bourne shell, both shells can use the same startup file That is, provided that only sh commands are put in profile For example, alias is a valid built-in command of bash but unknown to sh Therefore, if you had only a profile in your home directory and
Setting PATH vs. exporting PATH in ~ . bash_profile What's the difference and which is better to use when customizing my bash profile? Documentation on the export command is scarce, as it's a builtin cmd Excerpt from version 1 of my ~ bash_profil