feature request: commands to easily manipulate $PATH

[Lesmana Zimmer]

Binary package hint: bash

adding directories to $PATH is a very common task. it is desirable to only add a directory to $PATH if it is not already there. sadly that is quite hard to do. removing directories from $PATH is not as common but at least as hard.

i think bash should have commands to add directories uniquely to $PATH and remove from $PATH

for example:
path_append () { path_remove $1; export PATH="$PATH:$1"; }
path_prepend () { path_remove $1; export PATH="$1:$PATH"; }
path_remove () { export PATH=`echo -n $PATH | awk -v RS=: -v ORS=: '$0 != "'$1'"' | sed 's/:$//'`; }

from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/370047/what-is-the-most-elegant-way-to-remove-a-path-from-the-path-variable-in-bash

it would be better if the commands do not depend on anything outside of bash