[OS X TeX] environment.plist pointer
Christopher Menzel
cmenzel at tamu.edu
Thu Nov 16 20:12:32 CET 2006
Somewhat surprised by Gerben's response to the suggestion of using
~/.MacOSX/environment.plist to set one's path globally, I went
looking for the discussion he alluded to. It is here:
http://www.tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/2004-May/005950.html
It's a very interesting and informative thread. I believe that
objections to the use of environment.plist based on security grounds
are alarmist (albeit not groundless), but the points about the
dangers of breaking installers and such are well-taken, especially
for users of fink and DarwinPorts. These tools create separate bin
directories and offer alternatives to many unix programs and
utilities that OS X itself installs. This can cause problems if the
foreign versions are called instead of their expected OS X-installed
counterparts. The uncontroversial bottom line of the discussion
seems to me to be that there are usually better, safer solutions to
the use of environment.plist to set paths and other env vars, and
that it should certainly not be widely recommended as a general
solution to env var problems, as it can lead to breakage that is
difficult for even somewhat experienced users to diagnose.
Chris Menzel
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