12

I think at some point I messed up my .bash_profile and I have multiple now. I am trying to customize my shell but I am not sure which .bash_profile to use, if any. I thought .bashrc file was more often used?

I am running OSX - El Capitan

ls -la | more
total 480


-rw-------    1 Matthew  staff   6404 Feb 16 23:57 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--    1 Matthew  staff    719 Jan 19 20:18 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--    1 Matthew  staff    335 Oct  7 12:35 .bash_profile.macports-saved_2017-01-19_at_20:18:05
-rw-r--r--    1 Matthew  staff    167 Jul 16  2015 .bash_profile.pysave
drwxr-xr-x  208 Matthew  staff   7072 Feb 18 19:41 .bash_sessions
Kusalananda
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1 Answers1

35

No, you only have one and it's called .bash_profile. Bash will not read the ones with additional suffixes.

The other .bash_profile.* files looks like backups, possibly made by different software installations (from last year and the year before). Run a diff -u between your .bash_profile and the others (in turn) to see what's different about them if you wish, e.g.

$ diff -u .bash_profile .bash_profile.pysave

.bashrc is used by interactive shells and .bash_profile is used for login shells. If you're adding aliases, add them to .bashrc.

See also "What is the difference between ~/.profile, ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.gnomerc, /etc/bash_bashrc, /etc/screenrc ...?"

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Kusalananda
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