Re: [doc] LINES/COLUMNS auto-update in non-interactive shells contradicts manual

On Mon, May 11, 2026 at 18:59:32 -0400, Zachary Santer wrote:
> On Sun, May 10, 2026 at 5:10 PM Zachary Santer <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Ilya, be wary of using any all-caps variables in a shell script. You
> > can see how many bash has already reserved for its own use, and
> > external programs tend to take all-caps environment variables for
> > things they need.
> 
> Not to harp on this too much more, but look at all these variables:
> https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/variables/predefined_variables/
> 
> GitLab places them in the environment of whatever its CI/CD pipelines
> run. So I guess it's just  a general rule that environment variables
> are all-caps.

It's a long established convention, yes.  There are certainly scripts
that don't follow this convention, and there are a few isolated cases
where environment variables don't follow it either (http_proxy and
friends are the most prominent).  But as a rule of thumb, it's fairy
solid.