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cygwinbashdotfiles

How to make a command string executing bash ("bash -c") to read the .bashrc

When I call a bash shell from another program to execute an command string I call 

bash -c <shell commands>

This works pretty well, but the shell which gets invoked does not read the startup file .bashrc. I need this for environment variables and aliases set in the start-up file. I tried

bash -i -c <shell commands>

and 

bash -l -c <shell commands>

to read .bashrc or .bash_profile but didn't have any luck. How can I enforce reading of a start-up file?

Note: I tried this only on Cygwin bash 4.1.0, but I assume this is a machine-independent issue.

Solution

  • As the comments mentioned, 

    bash -i -c

    does indeed source the start-up file.

    I did something wrong in Emacs, my calling app; that's why it didn't work for me.

    Apologies for the unnecessary question.