binary placed in folder on $PATH is not immediately accessible

Question

in my $PATH I have folder ~/.zsh/bin which I use for small scripts and custom built executable binaries, for example I added a recently compiled tool I made called wercker_build_status to the folder. Yet when I type in the command line wercker_build_status it can't find it, I have to type the full path to the file, ~/.zsh/bin/wercker_build_status.

That's not to say nothing in the folder doesn't work, a script I have called wifi_status is in there and typing that into the command line returns the wifi status as expected.

Why is it even though it's in my $PATH I can't just use a file I add to the folder ~/.zsh/bin?

Answer 1

Use $HOME in your path rather than tilde (~), especially if you enclose the new PATH in double quotes. The tilde is not expanded when it occurs in quotes.

Testing:

$ mkdir "$HOME/t"

$ cat >"$HOME/t/foo" <<END
#!/bin/sh
echo "hello"
END

$ chmod +x "$HOME/t/foo"

$ PATH="$PATH:~/t"

$ foo
zsh: command not found: foo

$ PATH="$PATH:$HOME/t"

$ foo
hello

See also: Why doesn't the tilde (~) expand inside double quotes?