what does export do?

[Steven W. Orr]

On Friday, May 20th 2005 at 21:40 +0100, quoth THUFIR HAWAT:

=>On 5/20/05, Matthew Miller <mattdm at mattdm.org> wrote:
=>...
=>> > No files are affected by the command. All it does is mark a 
=>> > shell variable as being an environment variable that is passed 
=>> > on to any subsequent commands you execute *from that shell*.
=>...
=>
=>"Every programming language has the ability to access its environment
=>and to set or unset its variables. The environment is copied to all
=>child processes through crt0.o which is linked into every executable."
=>-Steven Orr
=>
=>I'm looking at "export" within the context trying to find out where
=>environment variables are stored.  In windows it's possible to bring
=>up all the environment variables; I assume the same can be done with
=>linux.  my question should've been:  where do I find the environment
=>variables?

On Friday, May 20th 2005 at 21:44 +0100, quoth THUFIR HAWAT:

=>something like getenv *?

The program to print out the who environment is env.

As to where it's stored, do read the environ manpage. Also look at 
the exec manpage. 

Normally when you run a C program, your environment is accessible as a 
char ** pointed to by the often unused third parameter to main.

main ( int argc, char * const argv[], char * const envp[] )

Also, you get a second crack at it via the external variable environ.

extern char **environ;

Of course all this is encapsulated in getenv(3) and setenv(3).

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