xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man7/environ.7 (revision 80ba09ce077d00d913c48a5da95f579fc757b7b6)

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.\"	@(#)environ.7	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
.\"
.Dd January 21, 2011
.Dt ENVIRON 7
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm environ
.Nd user process environment
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Vt extern char ** Ns Dv environ ;
.Sh DESCRIPTION
An array of strings called the
.Em environment
is made available by
.Xr execve 2
when a process begins.
By convention these strings have the form
.Dq Ar name=value .
The following names are used by various commands:
.Bl -tag -width ".Ev LIBC_DIAGASSERT"
.It Ev AUDIOCTLDEVICE
The name of the audio control device to be used by
.Xr audioctl 1 ,
.Xr audioplay 1
and
.Xr audiorecord 1 .
.It Ev AUDIODEVICE
The name of the audio device to be used by
.Xr audioplay 1
and
.Xr audiorecord 1 .
.It Ev BLOCKSIZE
The size of the block units used by several commands, most notably
.Xr df 1 ,
.Xr du 1
and
.Xr ls 1 .
.Ev BLOCKSIZE
may be specified in units of a byte by specifying a number,
in units of a kilobyte by specifying a number followed by
.Ql K
or
.Ql k ,
in units of a megabyte by specifying a number followed by
.Ql M
or
.Ql m
and in units of a gigabyte by specifying a number followed
by
.Ql G
or
.Ql g .
Sizes less than 512 bytes or greater than a gigabyte are ignored.
.It Ev EDITRC
Gives the path name of the file used by
.Xr editline 7
when command line editing is enabled in various programs.
See
.Xr editrc 5
for information on the format of the file.
.It Ev EXINIT
A startup list of commands read by
.Xr ex 1
and
.Xr vi 1 .
.It Ev HOME
A user's login directory, set by
.Xr login 1
from the password file
.Xr passwd 5 .
.It Ev LANG
Default for all NLS categories.
Only used if
.Ev LC_ALL
or the environment variable for a particular NLS category
is not provided
.Ev ( LC_COLLATE ,
.Ev LC_CTYPE ,
.Ev LC_MESSAGES ,
.Ev LC_MONETARY ,
.Ev LC_NUMERIC ,
or
.Ev LC_TIME ) .
.It Ev LC_ALL
Override for all NLS categories.
If set, overrides the values of
.Ev LC_COLLATE ,
.Ev LC_CTYPE ,
.Ev LC_MESSAGES ,
.Ev LC_MONETARY ,
.Ev LC_NUMERIC ,
and
.Ev LC_TIME .
.It Ev LC_COLLATE
NLS string-collation order information.
.It Ev LC_CTYPE
NLS character classification, case conversion, and other character attributes.
.It Ev LC_MESSAGES
NLS format for affirmative and negative responses.
.It Ev LC_MONETARY
NLS rules and symbols for formatting monetary numeric information.
.It Ev LC_NUMERIC
NLS rules and symbols for formatting nonmonetary numeric information.
.It Ev LC_TIME
NLS rules and symbols for formatting time and date information.
.It Ev LIBC_DIAGASSERT
Control how the
.Fn _DIAGASSERT
macro (from
.In assert.h )
behaves once the assertion is raised.
Refer to
.Xr _DIAGASSERT 3
for more information.
.It Ev LOGNAME
The login name of the user.
.It Ev MALLOC_OPTIONS
Control the behaviour of the
.Fn malloc
function.
Refer to
.Xr jemalloc 3
for more information.
.It Ev MIXERDEVICE
The name of the audio mixer device to be used by
.Xr mixerctl 1 .
.It Ev PAGER
The program used for paginating the output of several commands
such as
.Xr man 1 .
If null or not set, the standard pagination program
.Xr more 1
will be used.
.It Ev PATH
The sequence of directories, separated by colons, searched by
.Xr csh 1 ,
.Xr sh 1 ,
.Xr system 3 ,
.Xr execvp 3 ,
etc, when looking for an executable file.
.Ev PATH
is set to
.Pp
.Dl /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/pkg/bin:/usr/local/bin
.Pp
initially by
.Xr login 1 .
.It Ev PRINTER
The name of the default printer to be used by
.Xr lpr 1 ,
.Xr lpq 1 ,
and
.Xr lprm 1 .
.It Ev RCMD_CMD
When using the
.Xr rcmd 3
function, this variable is used as the program to run instead of
.Xr rcmd 1 .
.It Ev SHELL
The full pathname of the user's login shell.
.It Ev TERM
The kind of terminal for which output is to be prepared.
This information is used by commands, such as
.Xr nroff 1
.\" or
.\" .Xr plot 1
which may exploit special terminal capabilities.
See
.Pa /usr/share/misc/terminfo
.Pq Xr terminfo 5
for a list of terminal types.
.It Ev TERMCAP
The string describing the terminal in
.Ev TERM ,
or, if it begins with a
.Ql / ,
the name of the termcap file.
This is only checked if
.Ev TERMINFO
is not set.
.It Ev TERMINFO
The string describing the terminal in
.Ev TERM ,
or, if it begins with a
.Ql / ,
the name of the terminfo file.
.It Ev TIMEFORMAT
A
.Xr strftime 3
format string that may be used by programs such as
.Xr dump 8
for formatting timestamps.
.It Ev TMPDIR
The directory in which to store temporary files.
Most applications use either
.Pa /tmp
or
.Pa /var/tmp .
Setting this variable will make them use another directory.
.It Ev TZ
The timezone to use when displaying dates.
The normal format is a pathname relative to
.Pa /usr/share/zoneinfo .
For example, the command
.Pp
.Dl env TZ=US/Pacific date
.Pp
displays the current time in California.
See
.Xr tzset 3
for more information.
.It Ev USER
The login name of the user.
It is recommended that portable applications use
.Ev LOGNAME
instead.
.El
.Pp
Further names may be placed in the environment by the
.Ic export
command and
.Ar name=value
arguments in
.Xr sh 1 ,
or by the
.Ic setenv
command if you use
.Xr csh 1 .
It is unwise to change certain
.Xr sh 1
variables that are frequently exported by
.Pa .profile
files, such as
.Ev MAIL ,
.Ev PS1 ,
.Ev PS2 ,
and
.Ev IFS ,
unless you know what you are doing.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr audioctl 1 ,
.Xr audioplay 1 ,
.Xr audiorecord 1 ,
.Xr csh 1 ,
.Xr ex 1 ,
.Xr login 1 ,
.Xr man 1 ,
.Xr more 1 ,
.Xr sh 1 ,
.Xr execve 2 ,
.Xr _DIAGASSERT 3 ,
.Xr execle 3 ,
.Xr jemalloc 3 ,
.Xr rcmd 3 ,
.Xr system 3 ,
.Xr termcap 3 ,
.Xr terminfo 3 ,
.Xr audio 4 ,
.Xr terminfo 5 ,
.Xr nls 7 ,
.Xr dump 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
manual page appeared in
.Bx 4.2 .