Re: Special PATH variable for sourcing scripts?

[David Ongaro]

Matheus Afonso Martins Moreira writes:

> So it would be great if bash had a separate PATH variable
> meant specifically for sourcing bash library scripts.
> It could be called BASH_LIBRARY_PATH.
>
> Bash already has a BASH_LOADABLES_PATH[2] variable:

Considering the prior art and that "LOADABLES" is plural, shouldn't the
suggestion be BASH_LIBRARIES_PATH?

> Do you think this would be a good addition
> to bash? Would a patch be accepted?
> Please let me know if I should try.

I don't like blurring the semantics of . or source. Frankly I don't see
the need since I think bash is powerful enough to do what you want in a
function. E.g. you can define

    include() {
        local candidate path
        while read -rd: path
        do
            candidate="$path/$1"
            [[ -f $candidate ]] && source "$candidate" && break
        done <<<"$BASH_LIBRARIES_PATH:" ||
            { echo >&2 "$1: no such file" && return 1; }
    }

export BASH_LIBRARIES_PATH=$HOME/.local/lib/bash:/some/more/paths

and then do

    include terminal
    include arguments

where you need it. (Of course you may use a more descriptive name than
'include'.)

Having a dedicated function for this also makes it easy to add
autocompletion which only considers BASH_LIBRARIES_PATH.