UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Can somebody out there provide a good, concise definition of what CD_LIBRARY_PATH is and what it's used for? is there an equivalent to anything in NT? so far, all I know about it is that it's making my life suck
many thanks

you gotta give more info, what os are you using, and what problems are you having?

The CD_LIBRARY_PATH as with any other path is a location that certain programs/scripts etc will use to look for files. In this case they will be a library of information that the program requires.

I'm not sure what the CD library is used for, others such as LD_LIBRARY_PATH are used for Sybase commands....maybe this is an Oracle thing?

typo in my original post-
it's actually LD_LIBRARY_PATH (sorry)

it's supposed to show values when doing an env command-

An application we're installing has us setting it to certain values-
but the values don't seem to persist

we set the values, do an env and it shows the path being set
however, with reboot, do an env and the entry is gone altogether

how do you permanently set this? thanks

You can either set it in /etc/default/login for ALL users or for specific users, set it in their .profile (for sh and ksh) or .login (for csh)

the LD_LIBRARY_PATH is the path to library file on your system.
library files are the same as *.dll files in windows NT

library files are needed for installation of some software.
some software depends on certain library file to run.

At times some software can not locate the library file hence the reason why you set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in your .profile or .login
to help locate library file