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ENVIRON(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual ENVIRON(7)
NAME
environ - user process environment
SYNOPSIS
extern char **environ;
DESCRIPTION
An array of strings called the environment is made available by execve(2)
when a process begins. By convention these strings have the form
"name=value". The following names are used by various commands:
AUDIOCTLDEVICE The name of the audio control device to be used by
audioctl(1), audioplay(1) and audiorecord(1).
AUDIODEVICE The name of the audio device to be used by
audioplay(1) and audiorecord(1).
BLOCKSIZE The size of the block units used by several
commands, most notably df(1), du(1) and ls(1).
BLOCKSIZE may be specified in units of a byte by
specifying a number, in units of a kilobyte by
specifying a number followed by `K' or `k', in units
of a megabyte by specifying a number followed by `M'
or `m' and in units of a gigabyte by specifying a
number followed by `G' or `g'. Sizes less than 512
bytes or greater than a gigabyte are ignored.
EDITRC Gives the path name of the file used by editline(7)
when command line editing is enabled in various
programs. See editrc(5) for information on the
format of the file.
EXINIT A startup list of commands read by ex(1) and vi(1).
HOME A user's login directory, set by login(1) from the
password file passwd(5).
LANG Default for all NLS categories. Only used if LC_ALL
or the environment variable for a particular NLS
category is not provided (LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE,
LC_MESSAGES, LC_MONETARY, LC_NUMERIC, or LC_TIME).
LC_ALL Override for all NLS categories. If set, overrides
the values of LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES,
LC_MONETARY, LC_NUMERIC, and LC_TIME.
LC_COLLATE NLS string-collation order information.
LC_CTYPE NLS character classification, case conversion, and
other character attributes.
LC_MESSAGES NLS format for affirmative and negative responses.
LC_MONETARY NLS rules and symbols for formatting monetary
numeric information.
LC_NUMERIC NLS rules and symbols for formatting nonmonetary
numeric information.
LC_TIME NLS rules and symbols for formatting time and date
information.
LIBC_DIAGASSERT Control how the _DIAGASSERT() macro (from
<assert.h>) behaves once the assertion is raised.
Refer to _DIAGASSERT(3) for more information.
LOGNAME The login name of the user.
MALLOC_OPTIONS Control the behaviour of the malloc() function.
Refer to jemalloc(3) for more information.
MIXERDEVICE The name of the audio mixer device to be used by
mixerctl(1).
PAGER The program used for paginating the output of
several commands such as man(1). If null or not
set, the standard pagination program more(1) will be
used.
PATH The sequence of directories, separated by colons,
searched by csh(1), sh(1), system(3), execvp(3),
etc, when looking for an executable file. PATH is
set to
/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/pkg/bin:/usr/local/bin
initially by login(1).
PRINTER The name of the default printer to be used by
lpr(1), lpq(1), and lprm(1).
RCMD_CMD When using the rcmd(3) function, this variable is
used as the program to run instead of rcmd(1).
SHELL The full pathname of the user's login shell.
TERM The kind of terminal for which output is to be
prepared. This information is used by commands,
such as nroff(1) which may exploit special terminal
capabilities. See /usr/share/misc/terminfo
(terminfo(5)) for a list of terminal types.
TERMCAP The string describing the terminal in TERM, or, if
it begins with a `/', the name of the termcap file.
This is only checked if TERMINFO is not set.
TERMINFO The string describing the terminal in TERM, or, if
it begins with a `/', the name of the terminfo file.
TIMEFORMAT A strftime(3) format string that may be used by
programs such as dump(8) for formatting timestamps.
TMPDIR The directory in which to store temporary files.
Most applications use either /tmp or /var/tmp.
Setting this variable will make them use another
directory.
TZ The timezone to use when displaying dates. The
normal format is a pathname relative to
/usr/share/zoneinfo. For example, the command
env TZ=US/Pacific date
displays the current time in California. See
tzset(3) for more information.
USER The login name of the user. It is recommended that
portable applications use LOGNAME instead.
Further names may be placed in the environment by the export command and
name=value arguments in sh(1), or by the setenv command if you use
csh(1). It is unwise to change certain sh(1) variables that are
frequently exported by .profile files, such as MAIL, PS1, PS2, and IFS,
unless you know what you are doing.
SEE ALSO
audioctl(1), audioplay(1), audiorecord(1), csh(1), ex(1), login(1),
man(1), more(1), sh(1), execve(2), _DIAGASSERT(3), execle(3),
jemalloc(3), rcmd(3), system(3), termcap(3), terminfo(3), audio(4),
terminfo(5), nls(7), dump(8)
HISTORY
The environ manual page appeared in 4.2BSD.
NetBSD 10.99 January 21, 2011 NetBSD 10.99