what does export do?
akonstam at trinity.edu
akonstam at trinity.edu
Fri May 20 21:50:15 UTC 2005
On Fri, May 20, 2005 at 09:40:22PM +0100, THUFIR HAWAT wrote:
> On 5/20/05, Matthew Miller <mattdm at mattdm.org> wrote:
> ...
> > > No files are affected by the command. All it does is mark a
> > > shell variable as being an environment variable that is passed
> > > on to any subsequent commands you execute *from that shell*.
> ...
>
> "Every programming language has the ability to access its environment
> and to set or unset its variables. The environment is copied to all
> child processes through crt0.o which is linked into every executable."
> -Steven Orr
>
> I'm looking at "export" within the context trying to find out where
> environment variables are stored. In windows it's possible to bring
> up all the environment variables; I assume the same can be done with
> linux. my question should've been: where do I find the environment
> variables?
>
> thanks,
>
> Thufir
There is some confusion here. If we have a line:
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.
in a script. What export does is have $PATH available to subshells of
the shell running the script. If you source the script then the
subshell is the shell providing the command line and $PATH will an
environment variable accessible to all programs running in that shell.
However, if you execute that shell the $PATH will available only to
subshells on the shell you are executing and will not appear in the
environment.
--
=======================================================================
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-------------------------------------------
Aaron Konstam
Computer Science
Trinity University
One Trinity Place.
San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
telephone: (210)-999-7484
email:akonstam at trinity.edu
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