Binding Terminal to a shell script

I'm the reader in question. I come from a Unix background, so the first thing I did was check my .bashrc, .bash_profile, and such.

I also grepped for the name of the script that's being called with a full recrusive search starting at / with no matches. That's why I'm so puzzled.

If I log in as a different user, then su -u as the user with the problem, the problem doesn't appear, even if I explicitly call bash again. That's why I'm pretty confident that the problem is at the Aqua level rather than the command-line Unix level.

I have to say that I'm stumped. If you open up an application like Preview, does it also open up any of the PDFs on your system? I doubt it, so I just can't imagine how your script got associated with the launch of Terminal. What happens if you type "open -a Terminal" from within a Terminal window?

OK. I upgraded from Jaguar to Panther, as already planned before the Terminal trouble. No change - no surprise there.

I then logged in through Aqua as a different user. Then did 'su' to become the user with the problem. Then a 'cd' to make sure I'm in my home directory. 'open -a Terminal' shows nothing on screen, but has a slight delay -- about as long as it takes to run my associated script and exit, as happens when logged in directly as the poor victim account.

The Aqua user has tcsh as a default shell. Executing 'bash' has no problem. Executing 'open -a Terminal' from within bash has the same behavior as within tcsh.

Thanks also for such a quick reply, Dave.

Hmmm... so it's something to do with the tcsh configuration, then. Here's what the man page says about tcsh startup on Mac OS X:

A login shell begins by executing commands from the system files
/etc/csh.cshrc and /etc/csh.login. It then executes commands from
files in the user's home directory: first ~/.tcshrc (+) or, if
~/.tcshrc is not found, ~/.cshrc, then ~/.history (or the value of the
histfile shell variable), then ~/.login, and finally ~/.cshdirs (or the
value of the dirsfile shell variable) (+). The shell may read
/etc/csh.login before instead of after /etc/csh.cshrc, and ~/.login
before instead of after ~/.tcshrc or ~/.cshrc and ~/.history, if so
compiled; see the version shell variable. (+)

In addition, I have a niggling memory of an environment variable that can point to a startup script, but can't seem to find anything about it in the man page...

Found it! details to follow:

Well, the problem persisted even after checking of those files and changing the shell to bash (which I prefer anyway).

However, I made a backup directory outside of my ~, and moved everything in ~ to that (hidden files not included). Now, when I call up a Terminal window, I get default settings, including that awful black text on white background.

I guessed that if I had only moved my Library folder, something inside there woudl have done. Behold: ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist is an XML file with Terminal config settings. Here's an excerpt:

ExecutionString
[name of the shell script]

So it was an Aqua app preferences file, rather than the regular BSD-derived .*sh* files we were looking at.

Thanks for all your help with this question, Dave. You suggested several things I would not have thought of. Good luck with any future books.

I know this is old, but I have to say thanks Kevin for figuring this out, and thanks Dave for hosting this tip! I believe the problem arises when you use the mysterious "Use Settings As Default" button under "Terminal > Window Preferences." If you started the app by double clicking a script and use that button, it appears to set that plist option.

Working stupendously now; thanks again!

Hopefully someone still checks this because I know its old.
I'm having this same problem but I don't know how to fix it. I just began using Xcode and executed a script and clicked the "Use Settings As Default" button. I just would like to know exactly what to do to fix the problem.
I'm a newby so please help.

Edit the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist

If it is in binary format (new in 10.4), use plutil to convert it to XML.

Remove the value of ExecutionString.

WOW THANKS SO MUCH!!

I had the same problem, and spent forever trying to solve it. I had to stop the script from ecuting in the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist