when I su the root privilege, the $PATH variable changed
which file control this variable, it's different between su $PATH and login root $PATH, I thought they should be the same, but it's not.
excuse for my poor english, here is the example

login:user1
password:
echo &PATH
PATH=/111:/555
su
password:
echo $PATH
PATH=/111:/222
exit
logout

login:root
password:
echo $PATH
PATH=/333:/444

I am sure user1's $PATH is not the same with su $PATH
but why root $PATH is different from su $PATH?

I am using SuSe 8.2 and bash

your universal PATH (the one that all users can use) is located in /etc/profile

that users specific path is located in ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc

~ = The users Home directory.

thx for your information, I knew that.
But I want to know why su $PATH and root $PATH is not the same?
it should be the same or not?
If not, why file control su $PATH but not root $PATH?

I am looking at both these files to in order to add some things to my path. What is the difference between them? Is it preferable to use one over the other for certain situations?

I was also looking at the universal profile too (I'm adding java to my path if it makes a difference), I'm the only user on my computer, but I may well want root to have access to the same things I do. I was just a bit scared to change the universal profile because what is there already is doing some checking via if statements before adding bits to the path. I don't quite understand yet what is going on well enough to do that kind of checking. I guess it's checking to see if certain files or directories exist before adding them to the path.

Can anyone advise me on the above?