Why do I have to keep using `source ~/.profile` to get settings in place?

Question

I have a couple of bash scripts that I want to make sure runs by default and I'm currently storing them in ~/.profile on my mac. Is that the wrong place to be storing them? I've heard of others and tried them (like ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, etc), but they don't seem to be working.

What is the difference between all of these and which one do I put the scripts in so that it configures on runtime and I don't have to call $ source ~/.profile every time I open the terminal?

Answer 1

If both ~/.bash_profile and ~/.profile exist, bash only reads ~/.bash_profile when it is invoked as an interactive login shell.

https://www.gnu.org/s/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-Startup-Files.html:

Invoked as an interactive login shell, or with --login

When Bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable.

[...]

Invoked as an interactive non-login shell

When an interactive shell that is not a login shell is started, Bash reads and executes commands from ~/.bashrc, if that file exists.

~/.profile is also used by other shells.

Terminal and iTerm open new shells as login shells by default (by executing something like login -pf $USER), but many GNU/Linux terminal applications open new shells as non-login shells. OS X users often use ~/.bash_profile instead of ~/.bashrc.

Answer 2

                     +-----------------+                      |                 | interactive shell -->|  ~/.bashrc      |                      |                 |                      +-----------------+ 

interactive shell will source ~/.bashrc automatically.

Take a look at Should the .bashrc in the home directory load automatically?