Setting environment variables on OS X

Question

What is the proper way to modify environment variables like PATH in OS X?

I\'ve looked on Google a little bit and found three different files to edit:

Answer 1

Much like the answer Matt Curtis gave, I set environment variables via launchctl, but I wrap it in a function called export, so that whenever I export a variable like normal in my .bash_profile, it is also set by launchctl. Here is what I do:

1. My .bash_profile consists solely of one line, (This is just personal preference.)

   source .bashrc
   

2. My .bashrc has this:

   function export()
   {
       builtin export "$@"
       if [[ ${#@} -eq 1 && "${@//[^=]/}" ]]
       then
           launchctl setenv "${@%%=*}" "${@#*=}"
       elif [[ ! "${@//[^ ]/}" ]]
       then
           launchctl setenv "${@}" "${!@}"
       fi
   }
   
   export -f export
   

3. The above will overload the Bash builtin "export" and will export everything normally (you'll notice I export "export" with it!), then properly set them for OS X app environments via launchctl, whether you use any of the following:

   export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
   # ~$ launchctl getenv LC_CTYPE
   # en_US.UTF-8
   PATH="/usr/local/bin:${PATH}"
   PATH="/usr/local/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnubin:${PATH}"
   export PATH
   # ~$ launchctl getenv PATH
   # /usr/local/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnubin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin
   export CXX_FLAGS="-mmacosx-version-min=10.9"
   # ~$ launchctl getenv CXX_FLAGS
   # -mmacosx-version-min=10.9
   

4. This way I don't have to send every variable to launchctl every time, and I can just have my .bash_profile / .bashrc set up the way I want. Open a terminal window, check out your environment variables you're interested in with launchctl getenv myVar, change something in your .bash_profile/.bashrc, close the terminal window and re-open it, check the variable again with launchctl, and voilá, it's changed.

5. Again, like the other solutions for the post-Mountain Lion world, for any new environment variables to be available for apps, you need to launch or re-launch them after the change.