what does export do?

[Markku Kolkka]

THUFIR HAWAT kirjoitti viestissään (lähetysaika perjantai, 20. 
toukokuuta 2005 23:40):
> 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.

Windows environment variables work differently than those in 
Unix/Linux. In Linux a new process inherits the initial set of 
environment variables from its parent process, in Windows a new 
process gets a copy of the globally set system and user 
environment variables. This means you can't "bring up all the 
environment variables" in Linux because every process may have a 
different set of environment variables.
 
-- 
 Markku Kolkka
 markku.kolkka at iki.fi