How to access the Terminal's $PATH variable from within my mac app, it seems to uses a different $PATH

Question

I\'m trying to make a mac app where the user can type in commands just like they would in the mac terminal, I got most of it working however I found out that the $PATH variable

Answer 1

Adding bash Shell Path

The default shell paths can be found in /etc/paths and /etc/path.d/. One way to read the shell paths is to use the path_helper command. Extending the code example above and using bash as the shell:

let taskShell = Process()
var envShell = ProcessInfo.processInfo.environment
taskShell.launchPath = "/usr/bin/env"
taskShell.arguments = ["/bin/bash","-c","eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s) ; echo $PATH"]
let pipeShell = Pipe()
taskShell.standardOutput = pipeShell
taskShell.standardError = pipeShell
taskShell.launch()
taskShell.waitUntilExit()
let dataShell = pipeShell.fileHandleForReading.readDataToEndOfFile()
var outputShell: String = NSString(data: dataShell, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue) as! String
outputShell = outputShell.replacingOccurrences(of: "\n", with: "", options: .literal, range: nil)
print(outputShell)

let task = Process()
var env = ProcessInfo.processInfo.environment
var path = env["PATH"]! as String
path = outputShell + ":" + path
env["PATH"] = path
task.environment = env
task.launchPath = "/usr/bin/env"
task.arguments = ["/bin/bash", "-c", "echo $PATH"]
let pipe = Pipe()
task.standardOutput = pipe
task.standardError = pipe
task.launch()
task.waitUntilExit()
let data = pipe.fileHandleForReading.readDataToEndOfFile()
var output: String = NSString(data: data, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue) as! String
output = output.replacingOccurrences(of: "\n", with: "", options: .literal, range: nil)
print(output)

Note:

1. This code example calls the shell in non-interactive mode. This means that it won't execute any user specific profiles; such as /Users/*userid*/.bash_profile.
2. The paths can be listed multiple times in the PATH environment variable. They will be traversed from left to right.

References

There are a couple of threads on application and shell PATH's for OS X which provide more context How to set system wide environment variables on OS X Mavericks and Setting the system wide path environment variable in mavericks