Drush 7 does not work with 'localhost' - mamp-pro

Question

I'm not able to use 'drush status' when 'localhost' is in my settings. If I switch to '127.0.0.1', Drush status works, but it isn't connected properly; ading a port hangs it. I'm using MAMP Pro 3, and it prefers 'localhost' and port 8889. If I use the IP version, MAMP throws a PDO exception (or times out, depending on whether I add a port).
How do I configure MAMP 3 to work with Drush?
Except for the MAMP version, my problem is similar to Drush enable error and Drush install on local server error (Command pm-enable needs a higher bootstrap level). I have created the symbolic link recommended there, but I'm not sure whether MAMP uses the /var path.
My error is:
<h1>Additional uncaught exception thrown while handling exception.</h1>
<h2>Original</h2><p>PDOException: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory in drupal_is_denied()
(line 1921 of /Users/mypath/includes/bootstrap.inc).</p><h2>Additional</h2><p>PDOException: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002]
No such file or directory in _registry_check_code() (line 3194 of /Users/mypath/includes/bootstrap.inc).</p>
<hr />Drush command terminated abnormally due to an unrecoverable error.
[error]

Answer 1

Found my own answer. This error is related to MAMP using a different version of PHP. When I changed my $PATH to point to the correct version, Drush started working correctly.
Steps:
Check MAMP's phpinfo to find the path to the PHP version it is using.
Edit .bash_profile with something like (making sure to use the correct PHP version):
export PATH="/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin:/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php5.6.10/bin:$PATH"