How does bashrc function differently from bash_profile?

Question

I have been losing my mind due to IntelliJ not wanting to commit my code. I had put export GPG_TTY=$(tty) into my .bash_profile instead of my .bashrc; echoing $GPG_TTY responded with the proper path, but I still kept getting the gpg: failed to sign the data error.

From what I gather, .bash_profile is read and executed when Bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, while .bashrc is executed for an interactive non-login shell; $PATH variables should thus go into the .bash_profile...? Or, at least, so I thought. I'd like to know what the functional difference is between the two: why didn't it work from my profile but it does from the rc?

Answer 1

Solution to a problem: put the export var into .bashrc, and call the .bashrc from .bash_profile.

Yes, the difference is login vs non-login. The bash would be in login mode, when you login to bash, for example through ssh or on a non-gui machine. But once you logged in, all new instances of bash would be started in non-login mode.

If you having a GUI desktop, you will login into WM and not into the bash. So you would never have bash in a login mode (unless you specifically call it with a --login option). So it is kind of pointless to even have .bash_profile on a workstation with GUI.
But you still can have it, in case you will login to that machine-user through ssh, or your WM break and you need to start a recovery procedures.

And of course, the official documentation is a must read: https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/bash/manual/bash.html#Bash-Startup-Files