how to make changes in .bashrc effective in current terminal [duplicate]

Question

I have an open terminal in ubuntu lucid in which I need a new env variable set.So,I open the .bashrc file and edit it ,to add the new env variable( say PYTHONPATH)

.bashrc

PYTHONPATH=/some/path
export PYTHONPATH

But,in order to get this effective ,I need to close my terminal and open it again.Is there some command with which I can get this effect,without close/open the terminal again.

Answer 1

Take a look at the source command: man source

source ~/.bashrc

Apart from that: why don't you simply use the environment commands directly in your shell to set an additional environment variable?

export PYTHONPATH="/some/path"

That way the created variable is effective right away.

Answer 2

You can also try,

sat:~# . ~/.bashrc