🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul21.070212.16485@gbrmpa.gov.au> wayne@gbrmpa.gov.au (Wayne Amisano) writes:
>Hi,
>
>I am trying to write a script to set an environment variable in
>my tcsh environment.  I could use an alias to do it, but would
>much rather do it from a script.  What i need to do is, run a
>script to change the value of one environment variable, but
>every time i do this, it changes the variable in the spawned
>process, but it then disappears when it dies.
>
>I need this variable to remain around!!  Any ideas would be welcome.

It is an IMPERATIVE in unix that a child process CANNOT change the environment
of its parents. You should seek to understand this why this is necessary.

If you have a script that sets variables, running the script will never set
those variables for the calling shell, its parent.

If you "source script" (csh, tcsh), or ". script" (sh, ksh), then yes, you can
set variables that way.

Running a script spawns a new process. Sourcing a script interprets its
commands within the current shell just as if you'd typed them from the shell
prompt.
-- 
Jean-Pierre Radley   Unix in NYC   jpr@jpr.com   jpradley!jpr   CIS: 72160,1341