On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Nick Guenther wrote:
> 'export' is a command that takes a list of strings, treats them as
> environment variables, and pushes those variables out to the world
> outside of your current shell (that's why you have to use export in
> .profile, because .profile gets run in its own subshell, just like
> every script).
.profile is used to modify the *current* environment, and it is
typically run as
$ . ./.profile
i.e., without a subshell.
A subprocess (which is what a subshell is) cannot affect its
parent's environment (or other parts of its address space without
special measures, not discussed here). This is an "iron law" of
the Unix process model.
If you put lines in .profile:
ZIP="zap"
export ZIP
and execute .profile as:
$ ./.profile
then
$ echo $ZIP
you get nothing.
On the other hand
$ . ./.profile
$ echo $ZIP
zap
There are three dots in that . ./.profile, each different. For the
record,
the first one means "execute without spawning a subshell"
the 2nd one means "the current working directory"
the 3rd one is just part of the file name and has almost no
special significange except to ls(1).
This is for ksh.
env is not needed in ksh.
$ FOO=bar program
program will see FOO with value bar in its (program's) environment.
> "export env DESTDIR=/ make distrib-dirs" doesn't mean anything. Well,
> rather, it does not mean what you think it does. Try this:
It will attempt to export an environment variable named "env", and
export an environment variable DESTDIR with value "/", and also export
two more blank variables "make" and "distrib-dirs".
> $ export env DESTDIR=/ make distrib-dirs
> $ set #shows the current environment variables
>
> Anyway, why would using KDE have any impact on how commands in a shell work?
Who knows what wonders KDE is capable of inflicting on the young
and innocent? I have no idea which shell KDE runs in its "konsole".
csh does not do environemnt variables exactly the same as ksh or sh.
this "env" command is probably an attempt to get consistent results
across different shells.
Dave "garrulous in a good cause"
--
When was the day your shine was taken?
-- gerg
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