I had NVM installed already, then I discovered oh-my-zsh and installed that. It seems to have an nvm plugin, which I enabled in .zshrc.
Also I put this in my .zprofile
export NVM_DIR="/Users/me/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && . "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm
Now I can use nvm, but whenever I set alias default to a different version, nvm switches back the next time I open the shell.
$ iojs -v
v1.2.0
$ which iojs
/Users/me/.nvm/versions/io.js/v1.2.0/bin/iojs
$ nvm use 1.5.1
Now using io.js v1.5.1
$ nvm alias default iojs v1.5.1
default -> iojs (-> iojs-v1.5.1)
$ which iojs
/Users/me/.nvm/versions/io.js/v1.5.1/bin/iojs
Then after opening a new shell:
$ which iojs
/Users/me/.nvm/versions/io.js/v1.2.0/bin/iojs
Could my old bash install somehow mess things up? I'm on OSX btw but I guess it doesn't make a difference.
--------- edit ------ More output as requested
➜ ~ nvm version
iojs-v1.2.0
➜ ~ ls $NVM_DIR/alias
default
➜ ~ cat $NVM_DIR/alias/default
iojs
➜ ~ nvm alias iojs
iojs -> iojs-v1.5 (-> iojs-v1.5.1) (default)
➜ ~ nvm alias $(cat $NVM_DIR/alias/default)
iojs -> iojs-v1.5 (-> iojs-v1.5.1) (default)
I just found out why it's reverting to 1.2.0 I think. During installation of oh-my-zsh it seems to have taken the active PATH from my Bash shell and copied it to the .zshrc file including the active nvm path at the time:
/Users/me/.nvm/versions/io.js/v1.2.0/bin
But after removing that from PATH, now my zsh can't find any Node binary after launching a new shell. So still the question is I quess, why isn't the NVM setting remembered? I can still set it in the active shell like before, it just doesn't stick.
I'm now thinking there might be something fundamentally wrong with my oh-my-zsh intstallation. I have the git plugin enabled for example in zshrc but the command "gst" is not a valid alias.
plugins=(git, gitflow, nvm, brew, tmux)
➜ ~ gst
zsh: command not found: gst
Add below to the end of .zshrc
export NVM_DIR=~/.nvm
source $(brew --prefix nvm)/nvm.sh
Please note that must be in the end, i don't know why