Adding a Search Path to the Shell

There is a shell variable called path. This is a list of the directories that Unix looks into to find an executable program when you type a command. If a program is located in a directory which is not on your path, then Unix will be unable to find it and the program cannot be run. A new command must be placed in a search path of the shell. For example, howmany may be placed in the directory bin and this directory can be added to the shell's search path with the command,

% set path=($path ~/bin)

Note, $path stands for the current value of the shell variable path and ensures that your existing search paths are not lost! The ~ character in front of /bin is a shorthand way of inserting the user's full home directory to distinguish between the system /bin directory.

This may be best placed in the .cshrc file