what does export do?

[Matthew Miller]

On Fri, May 20, 2005 at 09:40:22PM +0100, THUFIR HAWAT wrote:
> 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?

Just as in Windows, each process has its own copy of the environment. You
can get a list at a prompt with "printenv". Or, you could use the 'getenv'
system call in a program. Or in a perl one-liner:

 perl -e 'foreach (keys %ENV) { print "$_=$ENV{$_}\n;" }'

-- 
Matthew Miller           mattdm at mattdm.org        <http://www.mattdm.org/>
Boston University Linux      ------>                <http://linux.bu.edu/>
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