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Author's profile photo Witalij Rudnicki

Quick tip: how to add hdbsql to a $PATH on MacOS

I was following that new tutorials mission Use Clients to Query an SAP HANA Database published this week by Daniel Van Leeuwen and I finally installed hdbsql on my MacOS. I used hdbsql on Linux and on Windows in the past, but — for whatever reason — never on Mac.

Once I was done with the standard installation I got all SAP HANA clients in the default (as of now, for the version 2.4) directory /Applications/sap/hdbclient/.

The next step should be to add this directory to the $PATH environment variable. Ok, the installation comes with the helpful, yet little known, bash script called hdbclienv.sh. Once you execute…

source /Applications/sap/hdbclient/hdbclienv.sh

… it will set environment variable HDB_CLIENT_HOME and will add it to the $PATH in your session.

But I still need to type that path, if I want to run it… So, the question remains how do I add this directory with SAP HANA Clients to my system’s $PATH?

I’ve done this hundred times on Windows, where there is the central location to edit it for a current user or for all users. But what is that central location for MacOS?

Obviously, because I am using bash right now, I can simply add this to my bash profile. But as a developer advocate I want to think not only about my preferences, but as well about other preferences that developers in our SAP HANA community might have. As well, I know /etc/profile is the system-wide profile, but it can be modified or overwritten by another MacOS upgrade.

After a bit of a research I finally found what I was looking for: the special location /etc/paths.d where applications or users can add a file containing the list of directories that should be added to the $PATH system-wide.

Let’s try it!

Only user root can write to /etc/paths.d, so I need to do something like…

sudo sh -c 'echo "/Applications/sap/hdbclient" >> /etc/paths.d/sap'

… and to open another session to check it working.

which hdbsql
which hdbclienv.sh
source hdbclienv.sh
echo $HDB_CLIENT_HOME
hdbsql

Bingo!

I hope those of you using MacOS will find it useful too 🙂


Stay healthy and have a good weekend,
-Vitaliy (aka @Sygyzmundovych)

 

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      4 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Thomas Neuhaus
      Thomas Neuhaus

      Hello Witalij

      Thanks great Blog! Simple, Fast and Sucess!

      Regards Thomas 

      Author's profile photo Jonathan Bourne
      Jonathan Bourne

      Worked for me, thank you

      Author's profile photo Ashwini Patil
      Ashwini Patil

      Thanks alot! Its really Helpful.

      Author's profile photo Dagoberto Telles
      Dagoberto Telles

      Thanks a lot! Very useful!