Does $PATH need subdirectories

Question

Given a $PATH like:

/Users/myname/bin:
/usr/local/Cellar:
/usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p362/bin:
... and so forth

do I really need the ruby location or is /usr/local/Cellar sufficient to find ruby?

Answer 1

The entries are independent of each other, and only count the direct contents. Try it.

> mkdir ~/bin
> mkdir ~/bin/test
> cp /bin/echo ~/bin/test/echotest
> export PATH=$PATH:~/bin
> echotest Hello, world
-bash: echotest: command not found
> rm -rf ~/bin/test