Why must nodenv init - be able to add ${NODENV_ROOT}/shims to $PATH more than once?

[geoffreyvanwyk]

There is a test for that at https://github.com/nodenv/nodenv/blob/master/test/init.bats#L87

Does it not clog up $PATH unnecessarily every time ~/.bashrc is sourced?

[jasonkarns]

I don't have the source issues at hand (I believe they would be found under rbenv). The crux boiled down to: nodenv init should not make assumptions about presumed intentions when it runs. Its job is to ensure the nodenv shims are first in PATH (at the time nodenv-init is run) to ensure that nodenv's shims take precedence over whatever is already in PATH.

At one point, it tried to be overly clever and remove the existing PATH entries. However, that was found to be brittle and unsafe in environments where PATH was set by other entities prior to nodenv. (distro-provided defaults, or sysadmin-controlled init scripts, for example) And it removed control from the users who perhaps didn't want PATH to be mutated beyond the prefixing.

If a user's PATH ends up with the shims in it twice, the recommendation would be to fix whatever is (likely erroneously) adding them the first time prior to nodenv-init being invoked.

[jasonkarns]

Related conversation: rbenv/rbenv#1573