setenv path precedence I'v got to include the path of a same software but two different version installed in two different location, since I have no edit permission of these file and there are some other softwares in these different location so I need to include both of the directories. The first dir `$HOME` contains lots of softwares, while the second dir `/grid/common/` contains fewer but all newer versions. So I want the second folder to precedes the first folder when defining the path environment variable. In my script: setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH $HOME/lib:/grid/common/lib Does `/grid/common/` precede `$HOME` or `$HOME` precede `/grid/common/` in this case?

The latter: `$HOME/lib` precedes (overrides) `/grid/common/lib`. By convention, environment variables which give a list of colon-separated directory paths are from _left-to-right_.

POSIX lists several "path" variables, all are processed left-to-right, including `CDPATH`, `NLSPATH`, `PATH`. Oddly it does not mention this one (which is more often used than several of the variables listed).

Usually the documentation does not say left-to-right, but just says "order", assuming the reader's cultural bias fills in the rest of the details:

* Program Library HOWTO: 3.3.1. LD_LIBRARY_PATH
* 4.3.2 LD_LIBRARY_PATH Environment Variable
* In which order does the linker process the library directories?