Checking if PATH contains $HOME/mydir and adding it if not (all in a script)

I would write

case ":$PATH:" in
  *:$HOME/mydir:*) echo it is in the path;;
  *) echo not there ;;
esac

I write ":$PATH:" to ensure that the pattern matches if the desired path is either first or last in your $PATH.

You can write a simple bash script to do something like this.

echo $PATH | grep -q  "/your/search/path"

Then check if $? is not 0, meaning no match, and if so add the path

export PATH=$PATH:/your/search/path

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