Re: Re: Modifying the environment

Thanks Jim.  This reply is one for my scrap-book of useful unix wisdom!

-Norm Finlay
Brandon University

Jim Knoble wrote:
> Circa 2005-06-15 dixit Glenn Morris:
> 
> : Vigil wrote:
> : 
> : > Not without restarting X.
> : 
> : Blast.
> : 
> : > You can of course modify a shell's environment and start any X
> : > programs from that.
> : 
> : Sure. What tends to happen is, I modify the environment of my existing
> : xterms, then some time later open a new one from the WM menu. The new
> : one gets the old environment, leading to much fun and excitement when
> : I forget I wanted to change the environment.
> 
> Several options:
> 
>     (a) If you're using a genuine xterm, you can start them with the
>         '-ls' option, which causes the shell they start to be a "login"
>         shell.  "Login" shells by definition read your ~/.profile (for
>         Bourne/Korn shells), ~/.login (for C shells), or ~/.bash_profile
>         or ~/.bash_login (for GNU Bash shells).  Put the environment
>         settings in the appropriate file, or in a file "sourced"
>         (included using the '.' or 'source' command) by the appropriate
>         file.
> 
>     (b) Some shells (notably bash, csh, tcsh, sometimes pdksh, maybe
>         zsh) read an "interactive" startup file as well, in which case
>         you may not have to change how you start your xterm or other
>         terminal window.  Bash usually reads ~/.bashrc, csh and tcsh
>         read ~/.cshrc, and pdksh sometimes reads ~/.shrc or ~/.kshrc,
>         depending on how it was built and whether the ENV environment
>         variable is set (check the pdksh man page and search for "ENV"
>         for more info).
> 
>     (c) Don't use applications directly.  Write "wrapper" scripts which
>         set environment variables from a file (or directory) in your
>         home directory.  For example, you could put your environment
>         settings in a file called ~/.environment.sh:
> 
>             EDITOR=gvim
>             VISUAL="${EDITOR}"
>             
>         Then, instead of calling gvim directly, you could write a
>         wrapper script called, say, 'Editor':
> 
>             #!/bin/sh
>             . "${HOME}/.environment.sh"
>             ${EDITOR} "$@"
> 
>         Put this script somewhere on your path and make it executable.
>         Then use it whenever you need an editor.  If you change your
>         ~/.environment.sh file:
> 
>             EDITOR=xemacs
>             VISUAL="${EDITOR}"
> 
>         then the 'Editor' script will see the change the next time it's
>         run.
> 
> Good luck.
> 
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