Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 23:56:46 -0700 From: Doug Barton <DougB@gorean.org> To: Sarah Wright <SarahW@nbci.com> Cc: "'FreeBSD-questions@FreeBSD.ORG'" <FreeBSD-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Environment Variables Message-ID: <391E4E2E.5A6F00AC@gorean.org> References: <492877AEF57BD311A02F00508B8E10E4303348@SF-BUSH1>
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Sarah Wright wrote:
>
> Where can I find a really comprehensive list of environment variables and
> what they do? I've looked around and all the lists I've come across only
> detail 20-25. But, I'm told there are "thousands"...
Well, I'm not sure what you are referring to. An "environment variable"
is just a value that's exported by your shell into the "environment,"
where other programs can see it. What these variables are able to
influence depends on the program you're running at any given time. For
example, a lot of programs respect the EDITOR variable. So if you are
using Bash for example, and add this to your .bashrc file:
export EDITOR=vi
then any program that respects it will use vi as the editor. A good
example would be crontab.
Hope this helps,
Doug
--
"Live free or die"
- State motto of my ancestral homeland, New Hampshire
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