I have an account on a group of servers called ace-net, and there is a program on there (in a very different folder) which I would like to add a path name for. However, I am unsure as the exact command(s) needed to put in the folder.

The path I want to add is /home/pyuet/usr/local/gromacs-3.3.1/bin/<program name>

I've googled it, but several sites say slight different things, so I'm confused.

Below is the only code located in .bash_profile at the moment.

if [ -f /usr/local/lib/bash_profile ]; then
. /usr/local/lib/bash_profile
fi

I appreciate any help that can be given!

At the end of .bash_profile, add the following:
If your $HOME is correctly set (and it probably is), you could put this instead:
From there, you can either source your .bash_profile to make the settings take effect (source .bash_profile or . .bash_profile), log out and log in again, or type the export statement on the command line to have it take effect for just the current shell.

Thank you!

However, when I tried to source it, I got the error message if: Expression Syntax.

I tried taking out the path command, and it did the same thing.

What is in there right now is:

if [ -f /usr/local/lib/bash_profile ]; then
....../usr/local/lib/bash_profile
fi

export PATH=$PATH:/home/pyuet/usr/local/gromacs-3.3.1/bin

(If you can see them, those little really light blue dots don't mean anything).

Thanks!

You should enclose code samples in a CODE block to preserve indentation when posting them. The if command syntax looks OK to me. Is bash or sh your default shell?

Bash expects the system startup script to be located in /etc/profile. This location is not standard so it is sourced if it exists. Since you added spaces which look like little dots, I can't tell if the second line is
The first will source the /usr/local/lib/bash_profile file.
The second will run /usr/local/lib/bash_profile in a subshell, so changes in that script won't be retained.
The third will run $HOME/usr/local/lib/bash_profile. See if this script exists.

This line will add /home/pyuet/usr/local/gromacs-3.3.1/bin/ to your $PATH variable. This line looks correct if you are using the bash or sh shell.

If you are using another shell, then /home/pyuet/.profile may not be sourced when you login.
Look at the output of "grep pyuet /etc/passwd".
The last field will contain something like /bin/bash or /bin/sh or /bin/csh or /bin/tsh.
You can change your default shell with the "chsh" command. (see man chsh).
The possible shells are listed in /etc/shells:
example:
Don't select /bin/true or /bin/false of course. /usr/false is used for system user accounts to prevent logins on that account.

One other thing to note. Even if you are using the /bin/bash shell, it is only sourced when you login.

There is another way of doing the test in your ~/.profile script. You can use the test command:

My default shell is tcsh.

Is what it is supposed to be (so option number three).

How do I tell if a script exists? Do I use:

If I run that, it returns /home/sfitzsim/usr/local/lib/bash_profile (which I assume means it does exist).

When I try to run "grep pyuet etc/passwd", it says grep can't open etc/passwd.

I still don't understand why it's returning an error on the 'if' - how do I fix it?