Getting expect to honor the PATH environment variable - environment-variables

I'm trying to run a expect script who calls a custom tmux instance already added to the PATH variable in a caller script, however expect doesn't seems to honor such variable.
Caller script
#!/bin/sh
export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
expect_script
Expect script:
#!/usr/bin/env expect
spawn tmux
send "hello world"
send: spawn id exp7 not open
while executing "send "hello world""
I'm using the following workaround but would like to know if there is a cleaner alternative.
spawn $env(HOME)/bin/tmux

The environmental variables can be accessed from the global array variable env.
#!/usr/bin/env expect
set ::env(PATH) "$::env(HOME)/bin:$::env(PATH)"
spawn tmux
# Further code below
But, I am surprised that without PATH variable set in your earlier case, spawn command itself will fail obviously with the following error message
spawn tmux
couldn't execute "tmux": no such file or directory
while executing
"spawn tmux"
Wondering how come you didn't get it without PATH variable and if you are getting error message at the send command and then it is possible that spawn succeeded and only when it is about to send the commands, it is not available causing this failure.

Related

activating conda env vs calling python interpreter from conda env

What exactly is the difference between these two operations?
source activate python3_env && python my_script.py
and
~/anaconda3/envs/python3_env/bin/python my_script.py ?
It appears that activating the environment adds some variables to $PATH, but the second method seems to access all the modules installed in python3_env. Is there anything else going on under the hood?
You are correct, activating the environment adds some directories to the PATH environment variable. In particular, this will allow any binaries or scripts installed in the environment to be run first, instead of the ones in the base environment. For instance, if you have installed IPython into your environment, activating the environment allows you to write
ipython
to start IPython in the environment, rather than
/path/to/env/bin/ipython
In addition, environments may have scripts that add or edit other environment variables that are executed when the environment is activated (see the conda docs). These scripts can make arbitrary changes to the shell environment, including even changing the PYTHONPATH to change where packages are loaded from.
Finally, I wrote a very detailed answer of what exactly is happening in the code over there: Conda: what happens when you activate an environment? That may or may not still be up-to-date though. The relevant part of the answer is:
...the build_activate method adds the prefix to the PATH via the _add_prefix_to_path method. Finally, the build_activate method returns a dictionary of commands that need to be run to "activate" the environment.
And another step deeper... The dictionary returned from the build_activate method gets processed into shell commands by the _yield_commands method, which are passed into the _finalize method. The activate method returns the value from running the _finalize method which returns the name of a temp file. The temp file has the commands required to set all of the appropriate environment variables.
Now, stepping back out, in the activate.main function, the return value of the execute method (i.e., the name of the temp file) is printed to stdout. This temp file name gets stored in the Bash variable ask_conda back in the _conda_activate Bash function, and finally, the temp file is executed by the eval Bash function.
So you can see, depending on the environment, running conda activate python3_env && python my_script.py and ~/anaconda3/envs/python3_env/bin/python my_script.py may give very different results.

Conda: what happens when you activate an environment?

How does running source activate <env-name> update the $PATH variable? I've been looking in the CONDA-INSTALLATION/bin/activate script and do not understand how conda updates my $PATH variable to include the bin directory for the recently activated environment. No where can I find the code that conda uses to prepend my $PATH variable.
Disclaimer: I am not a conda developer, and I'm not a Bash expert. The following explanation is based on me tracing through the code, and I hope I got it all right. Also, all of the links below are permalinks to the master commit at the time of writing this answer (7cb5f66). Behavior/lines may change in future commits. Beware: Deep rabbit hole ahead!
Note that this explanation is for the command source activate env-name, but in conda>=4.4, the recommended way to activate an environment is conda activate env-name. I think if one uses conda activate env-name, you should pick up the explanation around the part where we get into the cli.main function.
For conda >=4.4,<4.5, looking at CONDA_INST_DIR/bin/activate, we find on the second to last and last lines (GitHub link):
. "$_CONDA_ROOT/etc/profile.d/conda.sh" || return $?
_conda_activate "$#"
The first line sources the script conda.sh in the $_CONDA_ROOT/etc/profile.d directory, and that script defins the _conda_activate bash function, to which we pass the arguments $# which is basically all of the arguments that we passed to the activate script.
Taking the next step down the rabbit hole, we look at $_CONDA_ROOT/etc/profile.d/conda.sh and find (GitHub link):
_conda_activate() {
# Some code removed...
local ask_conda
ask_conda="$(PS1="$PS1" $_CONDA_EXE shell.posix activate "$#")" || return $?
eval "$ask_conda"
_conda_hashr
}
The key is that line ask_conda=..., and particularly $_CONDA_EXE shell.posix activate "$#". Here, we are running the conda executable with the arguments shell.posix, activate, and then the rest of the arguments that got passed to this function (i.e., the environment name that we want to activate).
Another step into the rabbit hole... From here, the conda executable calls the cli.main function and since the first argument starts with shell., it imports the main function from conda.activate. This function creates an instance of the Activator class (defined in the same file) and runs the execute method.
The execute method processes the arguments and stores the passed environment name into an instance variable, then decides that the activate command has been passed, so it runs the activate method.
Another step into the rabbit hole... The activate method calls the build_activate method, which calls another function to process the environment name to find the environment prefix (i.e., which folder the environment is in). Finally, the build_activate method adds the prefix to the PATH via the _add_prefix_to_path method. Finally, the build_activate method returns a dictionary of commands that need to be run to "activate" the environment.
And another step deeper... The dictionary returned from the build_activate method gets processed into shell commands by the _yield_commands method, which are passed into the _finalize method. The activate method returns the value from running the _finalize method which returns the name of a temp file. The temp file has the commands required to set all of the appropriate environment variables.
Now, stepping back out, in the activate.main function, the return value of the execute method (i.e., the name of the temp file) is printed to stdout. This temp file name gets stored in the Bash variable ask_conda back in the _conda_activate Bash function, and finally, the temp file is executed by the eval Bash function.
Phew! I hope I got everything right. As I said, I'm not a conda developer, and far from a Bash expert, so please excuse any explanation shortcuts I took that aren't 100% correct. Just leave a comment, I'll be happy to fix it!
I should also note that the recommended method to activate environments in conda >=4.4 is conda activate env-name, which is one of the reasons this is so convoluted - the activation is mostly handled in Python now, whereas (I think) previously it was more-or-less handled directly in Bash/CMD.

csh script as executable does not setenv

I am not able to set env variables through an executable csh/tcsh script
An env variable set inside a csh/tcsh executable script "myscript"
contents of the script ...
setenv MYVAR /abc/xyz
which is not able to set on the shell and reports "Undefined variable"
I have made the csh/tcsh script as executable by the following shell command
chmod +x /home/xx/bin/myscript
also the path is updated to
set path = (/home/xx/bin $path)
which myscript
/home/xx/bin/myscript
When I run the script on command line and echo the env variable ..
myscript
echo $MYVAR
MYVAR "Undefined variable"
but if i source on command line
source /home/xx/bin/myscript
echo $MYVAR
/abc/xyz
you need to source your code rather than execute it so that it is evaluated by the current shell where you want to modify the environment.
You can of course embed
source /home/xx/bin/myscript
within your .cshrc
the script does not need to be executable or have any #! shebang (though they don't hurt)
This is not how environment variables work.
An environment variable is set for a process (in this case, tcsh) which is passed on to all child processes. So when you do:
$ setenv LS_COLORS=foo
$ ls
You first set LS_COLORS for the tcsh process, tcsh then starts the child process ls which inheres tcsh's environment (including LS_COLORS), which it can then use.
However, what you're doing is setting the environment is a child process, and then want to propagate this back to the parent process (somehow). This is not possible. This has nothing to do with tcsh, it works like this for any process on the system.
It works with source because source reads a file, and executes it line-by-line in the current process. So it doesn't start a new tcsh process.
I will leave it as an exercise to you what the implications would mean if it would be possible :-) Do you really want to deal with unwise shell scripts that set some random environment variables? And what about environment variables set by a php process, do we want those to go back in the parent httpd process? :-)
You didn't really describe what goal you're trying to achieve, but in general, you want to do something like:
#!/bin/csh -f
# ... Do stuff ...
echo "Please copy this line to your environment:"
echo "setenv MYVAR $myvar"

Reload environment variables PATH from chef recipes client

is it possible to reload $PATH from a chef recipe?
Im intrsted in the response about process signals given in the following thread:
How to have Chef reload global PATH
I dont understand very well that example that the omribahumi user gives.
I would like a clearer example with chef-client / recipe to understand,
with that he explains, seems it is possible with that workaround.
Thanks.
Well I see two reasons for this request:
add something to the path for immediate execution => easy, just update the ENV['PATH'] variable within the chef run.
Extend the PATH system wide to include something just installed.
For the 2, you may update /etc/environment file (for ubuntu) or add a file to /etc/profiled.d (better idea to keep control over it),
But obviously the new PATH variable won't be available to actually running processes (including your actual shell), it will work for process launched after the file update.
To explain a little more the link you gave what is done is:
create a file with export commands to set env variables
echo 'export MYVAR="my value"' > ~/my_environment
create a bash function loading env vars from a file
function reload_environment { source ~/my_environment; }
set a trap in bash to do something on a signal, here run the function when bash receive SIGHUP
trap reload_environment SIGHUP
Launch the function for a first sourcing of the env file, there's two way:
easy one: launch the function
reload_environment
complex one: Get the pid of your actual shell and send it a SIGHUP signal
kill -HUP `echo $$`
All of this is only for the current shell until you set this in your .bash_rc
Not exactly what you were asking for indeed, but I hope you'll understand there's no way to update context of an already running process.
The best you can do is: update the PATH with whatever method you wish (something in /etc/profile.d for exemple) and execute a wall (if chef run as root) to tell users to reload their envs
echo 'reload your shell env by executing: source /etc/profile' | wall
Once again, it could work for humans, not for other process already running, those will have to be restarted.

Running tcl file from terminal

I am new to TCL scripting and trying to run the script from terminal.
If i run the script like
tclsh myscript.tcl
then the script is executing without any issue.
But, if I run directly without "tclsh", then it is throwing error as follows,
./myscript.tcl
./myscript: Command not found.
I have given the execution permission for that file.
I have added the tclsh path in the PATH variable
echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/bin/tclsh
Can anyone help me on this ?
Try with adding:
#!/usr/bin/tclsh
In the beginning of your script.
If still doesn't work please show us your script you're trying to run, maybe there's something wrong.

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