Re: setting environment variables from a bash script

[Brian Dessent <brian at dessent dot net>]

Aaron Gray wrote:

> Is it possible to set an environment variable using a bash script and for
> that variable to be able to be seen within bash once the script is
> finnished.

It's impossible for a child process to modify the environment of its
parent.  By executing the file as a script you spawn a shell subprocess,
meaning the changes to the environment are for that process only.

You can get around that by sourcing the script instead of executing it,
because in that case you tell the current shell to read and execute the
commands in the file rather than spawning a subprocess to do it.

Brian

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