What goes in a .bashrc file?

Read this Unix FAQ (http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=40648) (especially the section on shell startup files) and then post again if you still have questions.

Okay, so it seems that it'd be to my advantage to have a .bashrc file, which I have to create myself. Is it a good idea to just copy the contents of my .profile and paste in a new .bashrc file? How about copying the /etc/profile contents to my /etc/bashrc? Basically, I don't want to screw anything up, if I can help it.

Okay, so it seems that it'd be to my advantage to have a .bashrc file, which I have to create myself. Is it a good idea to just copy the contents of my .profile and paste in a new .bashrc file? How about copying the /etc/profile contents to my /etc/bashrc? Basically, I don't want to screw anything up, if I can help it.

You could just copy the contents of your .profile into .bashrc
Or you could 'source' your .profile from your .bashrc
Or you could have a subset of the commands from your .profile in some other file which you would then 'source' from both your .profile and your .bashrc
(I show an example of 'source'ing in that FAQ - in the section about shell aliases.)

The best way is to understand what the commands in these files are doing and decide what you want. Start with a minimal set of commands and add others as needed (when something doesn't work).

Thanks, Hayne!
I decided to go the sourceing route, and all is well!