Dotfile Template

Installation

git clone <repo> cd dotfiles && ./bootstrap.sh

This links the dotfiles into your $HOME directory. To install to some other directory (e.g. for testing), set $LOGIN_ROOT to the target directory.

Uninstallation

ls -d ~/.bashrc*

Look at the timestamp extension on the backed up file (e.g. .bashrc.2018-04-17T04-05-13Z.orig, select the ISO-8601 timestamp), then

~/dotfiles/rollback.sh <datestamp> ~/

which will remove the links into the dotfiles directory and replace them with the old, backed-up files.

What's going on here?

In general, I find constant confusion about what should go in which startup file (.bashrc vs. .bash_profile vs. .profile). See STARTUP_FILES.rst for my rant/discussion of what the files are for. In short, profile files are for general settings, and rc files are solely for things you might see at an interactive terminal.

In addition, I'm constantly running up against huge files where different options overwrite others, and it's very hard to puzzle out exactly where some setting is being overridden.

To that end, this repo is structured so that each startup dotfile only loops through its associated directory and loads the scripts within it. Shell-dependent startup files will also load the default posix startup file (e.g. .bash_profile loads .profile). In addition, because of the confusion between which files get loaded based on how you've accessed the shell, the .profile scripts also load the associated .rc script, if it's an interactive shell.

Stealing a bit from C header files, each startup file defines an environment variable when it's been loaded, and won't run if that variable is set. You can override this by setting $RELOAD_DOT.

What goes where?

.profile

This is the only file loaded from posix shells, and only on login. Any environment variables, aliases, and functions that are

1. posix clean
2. expected to always be available

should be placed in a file in .profile.d/. This is likely to be the case for most settings.

.bash_profile and .zsh_profile

These shell-specific files are loaded in login shells, and will source .profile.

Only place things in .bash_profile.d/ or .zsh_profile.d/ that you expect to be true for all shells of that type (e.g. history settings for bash go in .bash_profile.d/).

.shellrc

This isn't really a thing, but it's useful to have a place to put visual settings, regardless of terminal type. At minimum, put a basic prompt in .shellrc.d/, expecting it to be overridden by .bashrc or .zshrc. Likewise, here's where you set colorization options for ls and diff, since it's going to be the same regardless of shell.

.bashrc and .zshrc

These are mainly for visual settings. If you want a fancy prompt, put it in .bashrc.d/ or .zshrc.d/.

.cshrc

I don't use csh, but it's here if you do. It's written to loop through .cshrc.d/. If you have settings you only want to run at an interactive terminal, wrap them in

if ( $?prompt ) then ... endif

Ordering Files for Priority

Because files will be loaded in ascii-betical order, higher numbered (or un-numbered) files in a directory will be loaded after lower numbered files, and therefore override any values set there. This means that items should be loaded from general to specific or low to high priority, and that functions used by later stages must be lower numbered. [N.B. ascii-betical ordering means that 222 will load after 22, not after 99.]

For sanity's sake, I'm numbering ranges as follows

• 00-19

  basic functions/variables used in later stages

• 20-49

  general settings and sane defaults

• 50-89

  site-specific settings

• 90-99

  high priority overrides

• aa-zz

  personal settings