From: Eric Hodel <drbrain@...7.net>
Date: 2004-11-10T02:17:57+09:00
Subject: Re: ENV["PATH"] is being overwritten (in Ruby 1.4.6)

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Ken Innes (primehalo@hotmail.com) wrote:

> primehalo@hotmail.com (Ken Innes) wrote in message news:<70452692.0411081=
519.60aa8c87@posting.google.com>...
> > I'm having a weird problem where accessing the PATH environment
> > variable overwrites it with a different path. As an example:
> >=20
> >      /scripts/script1.rb:
> >           #!/usr/bin/ruby
> >           puts `env | grep PATH`
> >           puts ENV["PATH"]
> >           puts `/usr/bin/env | grep PATH`
> >=20
> >      Command Line:
> >           [testing]% script1.rb
> >           /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:.:/scripts
> >           /bin:/usr
> >           PATH=3D/bin:/usr
> >           [testing]%
> >=20
> > I have to put the full path for "env" the second time otherwise I'd
> > get "sh: env: command not found". And I don't know where the "/usr"
> > directory comes from. I've searched all the files in my home
> > directory, and don't see it setting just "/usr" to the path anywhere.
> > I also searched through the files in the Ruby directory and never see
> > a "/usr" by itself.
> >=20
> > This is a project that I inherited which uses Ruby 1.4.6 on a RedHat
> > Linux 6.1J. I copied it onto my RedHat Linux 6.1J machine, and
> > upgraded Ruby to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the scripts are not
> > quite compatible with the updated Ruby, so I had to revert to the
> > version that was originally used.
>=20
> I did more testing, and found that the path is getting truncated after
> "/bin:/usr". My .tcshrc looked like so:

[path snippage]

> I really don't understand this at all.

A thought came up on IRC:

Are you using RedHat's Ruby 1.4.6, or a hand-built one?  RedHat has been
known to "fix" packages in the past.  Either tcsh or ruby may have been
modified to give this behavior.  You can find a Ruby 1.4.6 source
tarball from a mirror off of ruby-lang.org.  (Holler if you can't find
it.)

Second, are there any binaries or scripts in /usr?  It is unusual to
have anything other than directories in that path, perhaps your version
of tcsh has a bug that truncates the path when nothing executable is
found?

--=20
Eric Hodel - drbrain@segment7.net - http://segment7.net
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