how to make changes in .bashrc effective in current terminal

Question

I have an open terminal in ubuntu lucid in which I need a new env variable set.So,I open the .bashrc file and edit it ,to add the new env variable( say PYTHONPATH)

.bashrc

PYTHONPATH=/some/path
export PYTHONPATH

But,in order to get this effective ,I need to close my terminal and open it again.Is there some command with which I can get this effect,without close/open the terminal again.

score 17 · Accepted Answer · answered May 31 '13 at 06:16

17

Take a look at the source command: man source

source ~/.bashrc

Apart from that: why don't you simply use the environment commands directly in your shell to set an additional environment variable?

export PYTHONPATH="/some/path"

That way the created variable is effective right away.

answered May 31 '13 at 06:16

arkascha

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thanks @arkascha ,learned something good today.. you are right .it can be done in both ways – damon May 31 '13 at 06:25

sat · Answer 2 · 2013-06-08T13:00:43.523

1

You can also try,

sat:~# . ~/.bashrc

edited Jun 08 '13 at 13:00

answered May 31 '13 at 06:20

sat

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`.` is POSIX-compliant, `source` is not. This should be the accepted and most-upvoted answer :) – Dec 18 '22 at 23:55

how to make changes in .bashrc effective in current terminal

2 Answers2