xref: /freebsd/share/man/man7/environ.7 (revision 20f68c5f2d5dc10bc34986fe1a8c23cc13f573b1)
1afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1990, 1993
2afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
3afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\"
4afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
6afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\" are met:
7afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
9afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
10afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
11afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
12dda5b397SEitan Adler.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
13afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
14afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\"    without specific prior written permission.
15afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\"
16afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
17afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
18afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
19afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
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21afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
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24afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
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27afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\"
28afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\"	@(#)environ.7	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
297f3dea24SPeter Wemm.\" $FreeBSD$
30afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.\"
316d34415fSGordon Bergling.Dd August 5, 2020
32afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Dt ENVIRON 7
333d45e180SRuslan Ermilov.Os
34afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Sh NAME
35afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Nm environ
36afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Nd user environment
37afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Sh SYNOPSIS
38afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Ar extern char **environ ;
39afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Sh DESCRIPTION
406d34415fSGordon BerglingAn array of strings, called the
41afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Ar environment
426d34415fSGordon Berglingis made available to each process by
43afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr execve 2
445203edcdSRuslan Ermilovwhen a process begins.
455203edcdSRuslan ErmilovBy convention these strings have the form
466d34415fSGordon Bergling.Va name Ns No = Ns Ar value ,
476d34415fSGordon Berglingand are referred to as
486d34415fSGordon Bergling.Dq environment variables .
496d34415fSGordon BerglingA process can query, update, and delete these strings using the
506d34415fSGordon Bergling.Xr getenv 3 ,
516d34415fSGordon Bergling.Xr setenv 3 ,
526d34415fSGordon Berglingand
536d34415fSGordon Bergling.Xr unsetenv 3
546d34415fSGordon Berglingfunctions, respectively.
556d34415fSGordon BerglingThe shells also provide commands to manipulate the environment;
566d34415fSGordon Berglingthey are described in the respective shell manual pages.
576d34415fSGordon Bergling.Pp
586d34415fSGordon BerglingWhat follows is a list of environment variables typically
596d34415fSGordon Berglingseen on a
606d34415fSGordon Bergling.Ux
616d34415fSGordon Berglingsystem.
626d34415fSGordon BerglingIt includes only those variables that a user can expect to see during their
636d34415fSGordon Berglingday-to-day use of the system, and is far from complete.
646d34415fSGordon BerglingEnvironment variables specific to a particular program or library function
656d34415fSGordon Berglingare documented in the
666d34415fSGordon Bergling.Sx ENVIRONMENT
676d34415fSGordon Berglingsection of the appropriate manual page.
686d34415fSGordon Bergling.Sh ENVIRONMENT
696d34415fSGordon Bergling.Bl -tag -width LD_LIBRARY_PATH
70afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.It Ev BLOCKSIZE
716d34415fSGordon BerglingThe size of the block units used by several disk-related commands,
726d34415fSGordon Berglingmost notably
73afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr df 1 ,
74afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr du 1
75afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesand
76afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr ls 1 .
776d34415fSGordon Bergling.Ev BLOCKSIZE
786d34415fSGordon Berglingmay be specified in units of a byte by specifying a number,
796d34415fSGordon Berglingin units of a kilobyte by specifying a number followed by
806d34415fSGordon Bergling.Ql K
816d34415fSGordon Berglingor
826d34415fSGordon Bergling.Ql k ,
836d34415fSGordon Berglingin units of a megabyte by specifying a number followed by
846d34415fSGordon Bergling.Ql M
856d34415fSGordon Berglingor
866d34415fSGordon Bergling.Ql m ,
876d34415fSGordon Berglingand in units of a gigabyte by specifying a number followed
886d34415fSGordon Berglingby
896d34415fSGordon Bergling.Ql G
906d34415fSGordon Berglingor
916d34415fSGordon Bergling.Ql g .
926d34415fSGordon BerglingSizes less than 512 bytes or greater than a gigabyte are ignored.
93370cbbf2SGreg LeheyThis variable is processed by the
94370cbbf2SGreg Lehey.Xr getbsize 3
95370cbbf2SGreg Leheyfunction.
96c309b053STim J. Robbins.It Ev COLUMNS
97c309b053STim J. RobbinsThe user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal.
98c309b053STim J. RobbinsUtilities such as
99c309b053STim J. Robbins.Xr ls 1
100c309b053STim J. Robbinsand
101c309b053STim J. Robbins.Xr who 1
102c309b053STim J. Robbinsuse this to format output into columns.
103c309b053STim J. RobbinsIf unset or empty, utilities will use an
104c309b053STim J. Robbins.Xr ioctl 2
105c309b053STim J. Robbinscall to ask the terminal driver for the width.
10606651299SMike Pritchard.It Ev EDITOR
10706651299SMike PritchardDefault editor name.
108afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.It Ev EXINIT
109afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesA startup list of commands read by
1104571317aSJoseph Koshy.Xr ex 1
111afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesand
112afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr vi 1 .
113afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.It Ev HOME
114afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesA user's login directory, set by
115afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr login 1
116afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesfrom the password file
117afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr passwd 5 .
11801eddd58SAndrey A. Chernov.It Ev LANG
119edf0e5b3SMike PritchardThis variable configures all programs which use
120906c1e27SMike Pritchard.Xr setlocale 3
121a5c2a55dSAndrey A. Chernovto use the specified locale unless the
122a5c2a55dSAndrey A. Chernov.Ev LC_*
123a5c2a55dSAndrey A. Chernovvariables are set.
12466d62591STim J. Robbins.It Ev LC_ALL
12566d62591STim J. RobbinsOverrides the values of
12666d62591STim J. Robbins.Ev LC_COLLATE ,
12766d62591STim J. Robbins.Ev LC_CTYPE ,
12866d62591STim J. Robbins.Ev LC_MESSAGES ,
12966d62591STim J. Robbins.Ev LC_MONETARY ,
130a5c2a55dSAndrey A. Chernov.Ev LC_NUMERIC ,
131a5c2a55dSAndrey A. Chernov.Ev LC_TIME
13266d62591STim J. Robbinsand
133a5c2a55dSAndrey A. Chernov.Ev LANG .
13466d62591STim J. Robbins.It Ev LC_COLLATE
13566d62591STim J. RobbinsLocale to be used for ordering of strings.
13666d62591STim J. Robbins.It Ev LC_CTYPE
13766d62591STim J. RobbinsLocale to be used for character classification
13866d62591STim J. Robbins(letter, space, digit, etc.) and for interpreting byte sequences as
13966d62591STim J. Robbinsmultibyte characters.
14066d62591STim J. Robbins.It Ev LC_MESSAGES
14166d62591STim J. RobbinsLocale to be used for diagnostic messages.
14266d62591STim J. Robbins.It Ev LC_MONETARY
14366d62591STim J. RobbinsLocale to be used for interpreting monetary input
14466d62591STim J. Robbinsand formatting output.
14566d62591STim J. Robbins.It Ev LC_NUMERIC
14666d62591STim J. RobbinsLocale to be used for interpreting numeric input and
14766d62591STim J. Robbinsformatting output.
14866d62591STim J. Robbins.It Ev LC_TIME
14966d62591STim J. RobbinsLocale to be used for interpreting dates input and
15066d62591STim J. Robbinsfor formatting output.
151c7fa2a65SWolfram Schneider.It Ev MAIL
152c7fa2a65SWolfram SchneiderThe location of the user's
153c7fa2a65SWolfram Schneidermailbox instead of the default in /var/mail,
154c7fa2a65SWolfram Schneiderused by
155c7fa2a65SWolfram Schneider.Xr mail 1 ,
156c7fa2a65SWolfram Schneider.Xr sh 1 ,
157c7fa2a65SWolfram Schneiderand many other mail clients.
1586d34415fSGordon Bergling.It Ev MANPATH
1596d34415fSGordon BerglingThe sequence of directories, separated by colons, searched by
1606d34415fSGordon Bergling.Xr man 1
1616d34415fSGordon Berglingwhen looking for manual pages.
16266d62591STim J. Robbins.It Ev NLSPATH
16366d62591STim J. RobbinsList of directories to be searched for the message catalog referred to by
16466d62591STim J. Robbins.Ev LC_MESSAGES .
16566d62591STim J. RobbinsSee
16666d62591STim J. Robbins.Xr catopen 3 .
16706651299SMike Pritchard.It Ev PAGER
1685203edcdSRuslan ErmilovDefault paginator program.
1695203edcdSRuslan ErmilovThe program specified by this variable is used by
17006651299SMike Pritchard.Xr mail 1 ,
17106651299SMike Pritchard.Xr man 1 ,
17206651299SMike Pritchard.Xr ftp 1 ,
17306651299SMike Pritchardetc, to display information which is longer than the current display.
174afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.It Ev PATH
175afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesThe sequence of directories, separated by colons, searched by
176afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr csh 1 ,
177afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr sh 1 ,
178afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr system 3 ,
179afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr execvp 3 ,
180afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesetc, when looking for an executable file.
181edf0e5b3SMike Pritchard.Ev PATH
182edf0e5b3SMike Pritchardis set to ``/usr/bin:/bin'' initially by
183afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr login 1 .
1846d34415fSGordon Bergling.It Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
1856d34415fSGordon BerglingWhen set to any value, this environment variable modifies the behaviour
1866d34415fSGordon Berglingof certain commands to (mostly) execute in a strictly POSIX-compliant manner.
187afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.It Ev PRINTER
188afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesThe name of the default printer to be used by
189afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr lpr 1 ,
190afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr lpq 1 ,
191afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesand
192afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr lprm 1 .
19306651299SMike Pritchard.It Ev PWD
19406651299SMike PritchardThe current directory pathname.
195afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.It Ev SHELL
196afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesThe full pathname of the user's login shell.
197afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.It Ev TERM
198afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesThe kind of terminal for which output is to be prepared.
199afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesThis information is used by commands, such as
200*20f68c5fSJens Schweikhardt.Xr nroff 1 Pq Pa ports/textproc/groff
201afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesor
202afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr plot 1
2035203edcdSRuslan Ermilovwhich may exploit special terminal capabilities.
2045203edcdSRuslan ErmilovSee
205afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Pa /usr/share/misc/termcap
206afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Pq Xr termcap 5
207afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesfor a list of terminal types.
208afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.It Ev TERMCAP
209edf0e5b3SMike PritchardThe string describing the terminal in
210edf0e5b3SMike Pritchard.Ev TERM ,
211edf0e5b3SMike Pritchardor, if
212afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesit begins with a '/', the name of the termcap file.
213afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesSee
214afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Ev TERMPATH
2154571317aSJoseph Koshybelow, and
2164571317aSJoseph Koshy.Xr termcap 5 .
217afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.It Ev TERMPATH
218afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesA sequence of pathnames of termcap files, separated by colons or spaces,
2195203edcdSRuslan Ermilovwhich are searched for terminal descriptions in the order listed.
2205203edcdSRuslan ErmilovHaving
221afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesno
222afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Ev TERMPATH
223afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesis equivalent to a
224afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Ev TERMPATH
225afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesof
2266d34415fSGordon Bergling.Pa $HOME/.termcap:/etc/termcap .
227afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Ev TERMPATH
228afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesis ignored if
229afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Ev TERMCAP
230afe61c15SRodney W. Grimescontains a full pathname.
231afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.It Ev TMPDIR
232afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesThe directory in which to store temporary files.
233afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesMost applications use either
2346d34415fSGordon Bergling.Pa /tmp
235afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesor
2366d34415fSGordon Bergling.Pa /var/tmp .
237afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesSetting this variable will make them use another directory.
238afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.It Ev TZ
239afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesThe timezone to use when displaying dates.
240afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesThe normal format is a pathname relative to
2416d34415fSGordon Bergling.Pa /usr/share/zoneinfo .
242afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesFor example, the command
2436d34415fSGordon Bergling.Pp
2446d34415fSGordon Bergling.Dl env TZ=America/Los_Angeles date
2456d34415fSGordon Bergling.Pp
246afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesdisplays the current time in California.
247afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesSee
248afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr tzset 3
249afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesfor more information.
250afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.It Ev USER
251afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesThe login name of the user.
2526d34415fSGordon BerglingIt is recommended that portable applications use
2536d34415fSGordon Bergling.Ev LOGNAME
2546d34415fSGordon Berglinginstead.
255afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.El
256afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Pp
257afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesFurther names may be placed in the environment by the
258f06471d4SPhilippe Charnier.Ic export
259afe61c15SRodney W. Grimescommand and
260afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Ar name=value
261afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesarguments in
262afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr sh 1 ,
263afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesor by the
264f06471d4SPhilippe Charnier.Ic setenv
265afe61c15SRodney W. Grimescommand if you use
266afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr csh 1 .
267afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesIt is unwise to change certain
268afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr sh 1
269afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesvariables that are frequently exported by
270afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Pa .profile
271afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesfiles, such as
272afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Ev MAIL ,
273afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Ev PS1 ,
274afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Ev PS2 ,
275afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesand
276afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Ev IFS ,
277afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesunless you know what you are doing.
278f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidas.Pp
279f87fc6e3SGiorgos KeramidasThe current environment variables can be printed with
280f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidas.Xr env 1 ,
281f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidas.Xr set 1
282f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidasor
283f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidas.Xr printenv 1
284f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidasin
285f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidas.Xr sh 1
286f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidasand
287f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidas.Xr env 1 ,
288f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidas.Xr printenv 1
289f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidasor the
290f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidas.Cm printenv
291f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidasbuilt-in command in
292f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidas.Xr csh 1 .
293afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Sh SEE ALSO
294c15a12dfSWolfram Schneider.Xr cd 1 ,
295afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr csh 1 ,
296d0930e86SJens Schweikhardt.Xr env 1 ,
297afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr ex 1 ,
298afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr login 1 ,
299f87fc6e3SGiorgos Keramidas.Xr printenv 1 ,
300afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr sh 1 ,
301afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr execve 2 ,
302afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr execle 3 ,
303370cbbf2SGreg Lehey.Xr getbsize 3 ,
3046ae0d91aSBaptiste Daroussin.Xr getenv 3 ,
305e0a5f02bSMaxim Sobolev.Xr setenv 3 ,
3067c2aa513SAndrey A. Chernov.Xr setlocale 3 ,
307afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr system 3 ,
308afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr termcap 3 ,
309afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Xr termcap 5
310afe61c15SRodney W. Grimes.Sh HISTORY
311afe61c15SRodney W. GrimesThe
3124b66483fSRuslan Ermilov.Nm
313afe61c15SRodney W. Grimesmanual page appeared in
3148209febbSSergio Carlavilla Delgado.At v7 .
315