In layman's terms, a path (or the search path) is the list of directories that will be searched for anything that you type on the command line. If you type in a built-in command like ls, it will look for a specified list of directories.
Path One of the most well-known is called PATH on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It specifies the directories in which executable programs* are located on the machine that can be started without knowing and typing the whole path to the file on the command line. (Or in Windows, the Run dialog in the Start Menu or + R).
What are PATH and other environment variables, and how can I set or use ...
I have some bash scripts in an application folder that I'd like to use as if they were on my path. If they were straight-up applications, I'd just add the directory to ~/.bashrc, but these are scr...
What does the ~ mean in an absolute file path? I see this in the output of things like build scripts but the path does not exist.
What does the ~ mean in a file path? - Super User
What is this "export" phrase at the start? export is a command (more precisely it's a Bash builtin, i.e. it's not an executable present in PATH, it's a command that Bash has built-in in itself). Is it exporting the data to be available for Bash? export sets the environment variable on the left side of the assignment to the value on the right side of the assignment; such environment variable is ...