Special shell variables in bash script

sbussy89 · 05-02-2008, 01:53 PM

I have a variable called ARCHIVE defined in my logon script, so whenever I'm in a shell i can type "echo $ARCHIVE" to print the value of the variable. Problem: I need to write a script that uses the value of this variable, but every time I try to use it in the script it looks for an ARCHIVE defined in the script, so it has a null value. for example, I say "dir=$ARCHIVE", and it sets dir to the null string because ARCHIVE is not defined in the script. I understand that the script runs in its own shell, but since the variable gets defined in my logon script shouldn't it be available to any shell?

lensman3 · 05-03-2008, 05:02 PM

You need to export it.

Declare ARCHIVE as:

export ARCHIVE=this-is-an-archive

Then ARCHIVE will get exported to the child shell.

05-02-2008, 01:53 PM	#1 (permalink)
sbussy89 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 76 OS: Windows Vista Home Premium	Special shell variables in bash script I have a variable called ARCHIVE defined in my logon script, so whenever I'm in a shell i can type "echo $ARCHIVE" to print the value of the variable. Problem: I need to write a script that uses the value of this variable, but every time I try to use it in the script it looks for an ARCHIVE defined in the script, so it has a null value. for example, I say "dir=$ARCHIVE", and it sets dir to the null string because ARCHIVE is not defined in the script. I understand that the script runs in its own shell, but since the variable gets defined in my logon script shouldn't it be available to any shell?

05-03-2008, 05:02 PM	#2 (permalink)
lensman3 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Littleton, Colorado USA Posts: 470 OS: xp 64 sp2 Fedora Core 8 (vmware xp core 8 x32) Minix	Re: Special shell variables in bash script You need to export it. Declare ARCHIVE as: export ARCHIVE=this-is-an-archive Then ARCHIVE will get exported to the child shell.