http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/redhat-linux-pathmunge-command-in-shell-script/
Red Hat, CentOS, and Fedora Linux has a pathmunge function defined in /etc/profile file. It will add the directories one by one to the default PATH for the root user.
pathmunge() function is defined in /etc/profile
Path manipulation done using pathmunge:
# Path manipulation
if [ "$EUID" = "0" ] ; then
pathmunge /sbin
pathmunge /usr/sbin
pathmunge /usr/local /sbin
fi
As long as you are using Red Hat or CentOS / Fedora Linux, you can use pathmunge. It is best to avoid this function if you need run a shell script on diffrent distributions. I recommend using export bash command for modifying PATH variable.