Reload .profile in bash shell script (in unix)?

Bash Problem Overview

I'm new to bash shell scripting, and have come across a challenge. I know I can reload my ".profile" file by just doing:

. .profile

but I'm trying to execute the same in a bash script I'm writing and it is just not working. Any ideas? Anything else I can provide to clarify?

Thanks

Bash Solutions

Solution 1 - Bash

Try this to reload your current shell:

source ~/.profile

Solution 2 - Bash

Try this:

cd 
source .bash_profile

Solution 3 - Bash

A couple of issues arise when trying to reload/source ~/.profile file. [This refers to Ubuntu linux - in some cases the details of the commands will be different]

Are you running this directly in terminal or in a script?
How do you run this in a script?

Ad. 1)

Running this directly in terminal means that there will be no subshell created. So you can use either two commands:

source ~/.bash_profile

. ~/.bash_profile

In both cases this will update the environment with the contents of .profile file.

Ad 2) You can start any bash script either by calling

sh myscript.sh

. myscript.sh

In the first case this will create a subshell that will not affect the environment variables of your system and they will be visible only to the subshell process. After finishing the subshell command none of the exports etc. will not be applied. THIS IS A COMMON MISTAKE AND CAUSES A LOT OF DEVELOPERS TO LOSE A LOT OF TIME.

In order for your changes applied in your script to have effect for the global environment the script has to be run with

.myscript.sh

command.

In order to make sure that you script is not runned in a subshel you can use this function. (Again example is for Ubuntu shell)

#/bin/bash

preventSubshell(){
  if [[ $_ != $0 ]]
  then
    echo "Script is being sourced"
  else
    echo "Script is a subshell - please run the script by invoking . script.sh command";
    exit 1;
  fi
}

I hope this clears some of the common misunderstandings! :D Good Luck!

Solution 4 - Bash

The bash script runs in a separate subshell. In order to make this work you will need to source this other script as well.

Solution 5 - Bash

Try:

#!/bin/bash
# .... some previous code ...
# help set exec | less
set -- 1 2 3 4 5  # fake command line arguments
exec bash --login -c '
echo $0
echo $@
echo my script continues here
' arg0 "$@"

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Amir Rustamzadeh	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Bash	kofriel	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Bash	girardengo	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Bash	twboc	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Bash	Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Bash	tilo	View Answer on Stackoverflow