.bash_profile or .bashrc in OS X?

I always forget which file to use when I want to change something in my environment. It doesn’t help that Terminal.app in OS X behaves a little differently than other *nix terminals. Thankfully, John Staiger posted a very clear explanation and a handy trick a few years back.

The short version is this: .bash_profile runs when you log in, .bashrc runs when you open a new terminal window EXCEPT in OS X which treats each new terminal window as a new login for some reason.

Staiger’s suggestion is to keep all your settings in .bashrc and just tell .bash_profile to call .bashrc so you don’t end up managing two files (click through for his .bash_profile contents). This works just fine, but I don’t know that I’ve even run into a situation in OS X where .bashrc would be loaded instead of .bash_profile so it’s probably just as easy to keep everything in .bash_profile and never create .bashrc.

I imagine the trick would be more helpful if you’re working in different distros and want to manage your environment the same way regardless of which OS you’re currently on.