where is $PATH set in xcode?

Question

It looks like xcode's $PATH environment setting is different from my user shell environment.

Where does xcode get the $PATH setting from and what's the best way to append to the search path?

Answer 1

XCode gets its environment variables the same way as other OS X processes, from ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist.

Check developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1067.html for details on how to set things.

Answer 2

if you're writing a Run Shell Script build phase, you can just do:

PATH=${PATH}:/opt/local/bin

or whatever inside the script content.

Answer 3

If you are talking specifically about the executable search path environment variable named PATH, then there are a few places that it is set:

• In your shell settings if it is a command line tool. Depending on your shell, this could be ~/.cshrc, ~/.profile, ~/.bash_profile, etc.
• In the environment.plist file that was mentioned earlier.
• If you are in a debugger, then it is whatever gdb uses. I believe that gdb will read commands from ~/.gdbinit if it exists.
• XCode lets you set environment variables within the Info page for executables.

Answer 4

Xcode doesn't look at your shell path environment.

Have a look at NSProcessInfo; and do an NSLog to see what comes up.

If you want a path to apply to all graphical programs you need to set up the ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist. as described.

The recommended way to set the environmen variables are actually in /etc/paths and etc/paths.d although these are also not picked up by Xcode.

I asked about this here.