How to keep from duplicating path variable in csh

ok, not in csh, but this is how I append $HOME/bin to my path in bash...

case $PATH in
    *:$HOME/bin | *:$HOME/bin:* ) ;;
    *) export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin
esac

season to taste...

you can use the following Perl script to prune paths of duplicates.

---

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# ^^ ensure this is pointing to the correct location.
#
# Title:    SLimPath
# Author:   David "Shoe Lace" Pyke <[email protected] >
#   :   Tim Nelson 
# Purpose: To create a slim version of my envirnoment path so as to eliminate
#       duplicate entries and ensure that the "." path was last.
# Date Created: April 1st 1999
# Revision History:
#   01/04/99: initial tests.. didn't wok verywell at all
#       : retreived path throught '$ENV' call
#   07/04/99: After an email from Tim Nelson <[email protected]> got it to
#         work.
#       : used 'push' to add to array
#       : used 'join' to create a delimited string from a list/array.
#   16/02/00: fixed cmd-line options to look/work better
#   25/02/00: made verbosity level-oriented
#
#

use Getopt::Std;

sub printlevel;

$initial_str = "";
$debug_mode = "";
$delim_chr = ":";
$opt_v = 1;

getopts("v:hd:l:e:s:");

OPTS: {
    $opt_h && do {
print "\n$0 [-v level] [-d level] [-l delim] ( -e varname | -s strname | -h )";
print "\nWhere:";
print "\n   -h  This help";
print "\n   -d  Debug level";
print "\n   -l  Delimiter (between path vars)";
print "\n   -e  Specify environment variable (NB: don't include \$ sign)";
print "\n   -s  String (ie. $0 -s \$PATH:/looser/bin/)";
print "\n   -v  Verbosity (0 = quiet, 1 = normal, 2 = verbose)";
print "\n";
        exit;
    };
    $opt_d && do {
        printlevel 1, "You selected debug level $opt_d\n";
        $debug_mode = $opt_d;
    };
    $opt_l && do {
        printlevel 1, "You are going to delimit the string with \"$opt_l\"\n";
        $delim_chr = $opt_l;
    };
    $opt_e && do {
        if($opt_s) { die "Cannot specify BOTH env var and string\n"; }
        printlevel 1, "Using Environment variable \"$opt_e\"\n";
        $initial_str = $ENV{$opt_e};
    };
    $opt_s && do {
        printlevel 1, "Using String \"$opt_s\"\n";
        $initial_str = $opt_s;
    };
}

if( ($#ARGV != 1) and !$opt_e and !$opt_s){
    die "Nothing to work with -- try $0 -h\n";
}

$what = shift @ARGV;
# Split path using the delimiter
@dirs = split(/$delim_chr/, $initial_str);

$dest;
@newpath = ();
LOOP: foreach (@dirs){
    # Ensure the directory exists and is a directory
    if(! -e ) { printlevel 1, "$_ does not exist\n"; next; }
    # If the directory is ., set $dot and go around again
    if($_ eq '.') { $dot = 1; next; }

#   if ($_ ne `realpath $_`){
#           printlevel 2, "$_ becomes ".`realpath $_`."\n";
#   }
    undef $dest;
    #$_=Stdlib::realpath($_,$dest);
    # Check for duplicates and dot path
    foreach $adir (@newpath) { if($_ eq $adir) { 
        printlevel 2, "Duplicate: $_\n";
        next LOOP; 
    }}

    push @newpath, $_;
}

# Join creates a string from a list/array delimited by the first expression
print join($delim_chr, @newpath) . ($dot ? $delim_chr.".\n" : "\n");

printlevel 1, "Thank you for using $0\n";
exit;

sub printlevel {
    my($level, $string) = @_;

    if($opt_v >= $level) {
        print STDERR $string;
    }
}

---

i hope thats useful.

Im surprised no one used the tr ":" "\n" | grep -x techique to search if a given folder already exists in $PATH. Any reason not to?

In 1 line:

if ! $(echo "$PATH" | tr ":" "\n" | grep -qx "$dir") ; then PATH=$PATH:$dir ; fi

Here is a function ive made myself to add several folders at once to $PATH (use "aaa:bbb:ccc" notation as argument), checking each one for duplicates before adding:

append_path()
{
    local SAVED_IFS="$IFS"
    local dir
    IFS=:
    for dir in $1 ; do
        if ! $( echo "$PATH" | tr ":" "\n" | grep -qx "$dir" ) ; then
            PATH=$PATH:$dir
        fi
    done
    IFS="$SAVED_IFS"
}

It can be called in a script like this:

append_path "/test:$HOME/bin:/example/my dir/space is not an issue"

It has the following advantages:

• No bashisms or any shell-specific syntax. It run perfectly with !#/bin/sh (ive tested with dash)
• Multiple folders can be added at once
• No sorting, preserves folder order
• Deals perfectly with spaces in folder names
• A single test works no matter if $folder is at begginning, end, middle, or is the only folder in $PATH (thus avoiding testing x:*, *:x, :x:, x, as many of the solutions here implicitly do)
• Works (and preserve) if $PATH begins or ends with ":", or has "::" in it (meaning current folder)
• No awk or sed needed.
• EPA friendly ;) Original IFS value is preserved, and all other variables are local to the function scope.

Hope that helps!