ENVIRON(7)					       BSD Miscellaneous Information Manual						ENVIRON(7)

NAME

     environ -- user environment

SYNOPSIS

     extern char **environ;

DESCRIPTION

     An array of strings called the environment is made available by execve(2) when a process begins.  By convention these strings have the form
     ``name=value''.  The following names are used by various commands:

     BLOCKSIZE	  The size of the block units used by several commands, most notably df(1), du(1) and ls(1).  This variable is processed by the
		  getbsize(3) function.

     COLUMNS	  The user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal.  Utilities such as ls(1) and who(1) use this to format output
		  into columns.  If unset or empty, utilities will use an ioctl(2) call to ask the terminal driver for the width.

     EDITOR	  Default editor name.

     EXINIT	  A startup list of commands read by ex(1) and vi(1).

     HOME	  A user's login directory, set by login(1) from the password file passwd(5).

     LANG	  This variable configures all programs which use setlocale(3) to use the specified locale unless the LC_* variables are set.

     LC_ALL	  Overrides the values of LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, LC_MONETARY, LC_NUMERIC, LC_TIME and LANG.

     LC_COLLATE   Locale to be used for ordering of strings.

     LC_CTYPE	  Locale to be used for character classification (letter, space, digit, etc.) and for interpreting byte sequences as multibyte
		  characters.

     LC_MESSAGES  Locale to be used for diagnostic messages.

     LC_MONETARY  Locale to be used for interpreting monetary input and formatting output.

     LC_NUMERIC   Locale to be used for interpreting numeric input and formatting output.

     LC_TIME	  Locale to be used for interpreting dates input and for formatting output.

     MAIL	  The location of the user's mailbox instead of the default in /var/mail, used by mail(1), sh(1), and many other mail clients.

     NLSPATH	  List of directories to be searched for the message catalog referred to by LC_MESSAGES.  See catopen(3).

     PAGER	  Default paginator program.  The program specified by this variable is used by mail(1), man(1), ftp(1), etc, to display informa-
		  tion which is longer than the current display.

     PATH	  The sequence of directories, separated by colons, searched by csh(1), sh(1), system(3), execvp(3), etc, when looking for an exe-
		  cutable file.  PATH is set to ``/usr/bin:/bin'' initially by login(1).

     PRINTER	  The name of the default printer to be used by lpr(1), lpq(1), and lprm(1).

     PWD	  The current directory pathname.

     SHELL	  The full pathname of the user's login shell.

     TERM	  The kind of terminal for which output is to be prepared.  This information is used by commands, such as nroff(1) or plot(1)
		  which may exploit special terminal capabilities.  See /usr/share/misc/termcap (termcap(5)) for a list of terminal types.

     TERMCAP	  The string describing the terminal in TERM, or, if it begins with a '/', the name of the termcap file.  See TERMPATH below, and
		  termcap(5).

     TERMPATH	  A sequence of pathnames of termcap files, separated by colons or spaces, which are searched for terminal descriptions in the
		  order listed.  Having no TERMPATH is equivalent to a TERMPATH of ``$HOME/.termcap:/etc/termcap''.  TERMPATH is ignored if
		  TERMCAP contains a full pathname.

     TMPDIR	  The directory in which to store temporary files.  Most applications use either ``/tmp'' or ``/var/tmp''.  Setting this variable
		  will make them use another directory.

     TZ 	  The timezone to use when displaying dates.  The normal format is a pathname relative to ``/usr/share/zoneinfo''.  For example,
		  the command ``env TZ=America/Los_Angeles date'' displays the current time in California.  See tzset(3) for more information.

     USER	  The login name of the user.

     Further names may be placed in the environment by the export command and name=value arguments in sh(1), or by the setenv command if you use
     csh(1).  It is unwise to change certain sh(1) variables that are frequently exported by .profile files, such as MAIL, PS1, PS2, and IFS,
     unless you know what you are doing.

     The current environment variables can be printed with env(1), set(1) or printenv(1) in sh(1) and env(1), printenv(1) or the printenv built-in
     command in csh(1).

SEE ALSO

     cd(1), csh(1), env(1), ex(1), login(1), printenv(1), sh(1), execve(2), execle(3), getbsize(3), getenv(3), setenv(3), setlocale(3), system(3),
     termcap(3), termcap(5)

HISTORY

     The environ manual page appeared in 4.2BSD.

BSD
								  April 12, 2003							       BSD