bash – Make Exported Environment Variables Stick Around in a Shell Script

bashenvironment-variablesshellshell-script

I have multiple Amazon EC2 accounts and want to quickly be able to switch variables, such as $EC2_HOME, using a script.

I have have a shell script set up like this:

#!/bin/sh
export EC2_HOME=/home/me/.ec2
echo $EC2_HOME

When I run the script I know that EC2_HOME is set, but I thought that using export would make the variable stick around after the script completed. It does not, as running echo $EC_HOME does not show anything.

I know this must be very rudimentary Linux scripting knowledge, but I don't know it. I tried looking for related questions without luck – so my apologies if this is a duplicate.

Best Answer

You should source your script, with

. ./script

source ./script

Related Solutions

Shell Variables – How to Make Exported Shell Variables Permanent

Ordinarily, you'd put your "export" line into whatever shell startup file is appropriate: .profile, .bash_profile, .zprofile, whatever, in your $HOME directory.

If you want to make it permanent for every user, the various shells usually have system-wide config files in /etc/: /etc/profile exists on this linux box, but do read the man page to figure out which user-specific and which system-wide file to put it in.

Bash – how to prevent exported environment variables to be recognized/accessible by a child shell (bash)

You can use the env command to start a process with a clean environment. Here is an example:

env -i /bin/myprog

If you still need to export some variables, you can do so in the call:

env -i MYVAR=foo /bin/myprog

The env command is required by POSIX.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Shell Variables – How to Make Exported Shell Variables Permanent

Bash – how to prevent exported environment variables to be recognized/accessible by a child shell (bash)

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