System Variables (PYTHONPATH) on CYGWIN

Question

I am going through some programing related tutorials that require usage of use bash on Windows. I installed CYGWIN, but it seems linux uses a environmental variable called PYTHONPATH, which the default installation of Python on Windows doesnt have.

I attempted to add this environmental variable in Windows by creating a system variable as such:

Variable name: PYTHONPATH

Variable Value: C:\Users\Moondra\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\Scripts;C:\Python27\;C:\Python27\Scripts;

Now if I run this (below) on CYGWIN, I get the following ("command not found"):

$ $PYTHONPATH

bash:C:\Users\Moondra\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\Scripts;C:\Python27\;C:\Python27\Scripts;: command not found

It seems to be printing out the paths, but I am also getting a command not found error. I don't know how to resolve this issue.

Thank you.

Answer 1

if you want to see the value of the PYTHONPATH environment variable in Cygwin bash

$ echo "PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH"

or

$ set | egrep '^PYTHONPATH='

If you just type "dollar-variablename" as you have done bash will try to expand the contents of the variable and then run it as a command (script or executable file) - since it is really a list of directories it fails with the "command not found" message.

If you really want to run python from the Cygwin bash command line try something like this:

$ find "$(cygpath 'C:\' )" -mount -maxdepth 3 -iname python.exe -print 2>/dev/null
/cygdrive/c/Python27/python.exe
/cygdrive/c/Python37/python.exe
$ mkdir -p /usr/local/python/cygdrive-c-python27/bin
$ ln -s /cygdrive/c/Python27/python.exe /usr/local/python/cygdrive-c-python27/bin/python
$ export PATH="/usr/local/python/cygdrive-c-python27/bin:$PATH"
$ type python
python is /usr/local/python/cygdrive-c-python27/bin/python
$ python --version
Python 2.7.12

Search on google or bing or dogpile for "bash basics" or "linux command line basics" for more information about bash