NSTask not picking up $PATH from the user's environment

Try,

    [task setLaunchPath:@"/bin/bash"];
    NSArray *args = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"-l",
                     @"-c",
                     @"which git",
                     nil];
    [task setArguments: args];

This worked for me on Snow Leopard; I haven't tested on any other system. The -l (lowercase L) tells bash to "act as if it had been invoked as a login shell", and in the process it picked up my normal $PATH. This did not work for me if the launch path was set to /bit/sh, even with -l.


Running a task via NSTask uses fork() and exec() to actually run the task. The user's interactive shell isn't involved at all. Since $PATH is (by and large) a shell concept, it doesn't apply when you're talking about running processes in some other fashion.


Is /usr/local/git/bin in your $PATH when you run the program? I think which only looks in the user's $PATH.