topic Re: Environment variable setup using export failed to setup env variables in Operating System - Linux

Environment variable setup using export failed to setup env variables

Danny Fang — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 06:53:27 GMT

HI,

I have a short script below to set some environment variables.

#!/bin/sh
export GATEWAY_ROOT=/prodkl/working/huawei_nss/V33
export GATEWAY_FRAMEWORK=/prodkl/working/GATEWAY_FRAMEWORK
export GATEWAY_CONFIG=/prodkl/working/3rd_LINE/huawei_nss/V33/GATEWAY_CONFIG
export VENDOR_GATEWAY=/prodkl/working/3rd_LINE/huawei_nss/V33/VENDOR_GATEWAY
export PERL5_BASE=/prodkl/working/3rd_LINE/PERL5_BASE
export TZ=GMT+8

However, executing the script does not seem to set the environment variables.
bash-3.00$ echo $TZ

bash-3.00$ echo $GATEWAY_CONFIG

bash-3.00$ echo $VENDOR_GATEWAY

bash-3.00$ echo $GATEWAY_ROOT

May I understand where did go wrong?

Thanks
Danny.

Re: Environment variable setup using export failed to setup env variables

Oviwan — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:08:12 GMT

Hey

just source this file but remove the #!/bin/sh line before.

then

. /path/toyourfile/filename

now you can do echo $TZ

Regards

Re: Environment variable setup using export failed to setup env variables

Ivan Ferreira — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:52:17 GMT

As menthined by Oviwan, the problem is that the variables are set into a new shell (#!/bin/bash), then the script finishes and the shell ends.

To avoid this, and set the variables to your current shell, remove the first line and run:

. shell.sh

This is dot, space, shell.sh. Or you can use:

source shell.sh

This will load the variables into your current shell.

Re: Environment variable setup using export failed to setup env variables

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:04:12 GMT

Hi Danny:

The key is to source (read) your script but not run it as a separate shell where its variables cannot be seen or propagated to parent shell.

Hence:

#!/bin/sh
echo "I am the parent script"
. myenv.sh #...NOTE the DOT then WHITESPACE followd by the file name!
echo "my GATEWAY_ROOT is ${GATEWAY_ROOT}"

This is WRONG:

...
myenv.sh
echo "my GATEWAY_ROOT is ${GATEWAY_ROOT}"
...

Regards!

...JRF...