Technical Articles
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)
Hello Witalij
Thanks great Blog! Simple, Fast and Sucess!
Regards ThomasÂ
Worked for me, thank you
Thanks alot! Its really Helpful.
Thanks a lot! Very useful!