PREFIX(1)                                                     General Commands Manual                                                    PREFIX(1)

NAME

       prefix  - Script that allows you to reconfigure environment variables for multiple installations of a set of software installed on the same
       machine

SYNOPSIS

       prefix

DESCRIPTION

       It is assumed that the software for each installation is all under a single directory whose name is assigned  to  an  environment  variable
       called PREFIX.

       This  arrangement  of  enabling  multiple installations of software on a single machine is useful at many times. On a single server, it can
       provide for development, test, and production installations of software. Alternatively, on development  servers,  it  allows  for  multiple
       development  "sandboxes",  one  for each developer. On production servers, it allows for multiple versions of the production software to be
       installed. One might be the currently running software, one the previous software kept online as a fall-back, and  one  a  new  release  of
       software wich is scheduled to be brought online soon.

       There are three usages of the prefix script:

              (1) The interactive usage should be placed as the last line
                  of a user's ".profile".  The user must be running the
                  Korn shell (ksh) or the Bourne Again shell (bash).
                  The user is prompted to enter one of the known PREFIX locations,
                  specified in the $HOME/.prefixes file or the /etc/prefixes file.
                  During configuration, the $PREFIX/.prefixrc file is sourced
                  in order to accomplish environment-specific configurations.

              (2) The non-interactive user configuration does not consult
                  $HOME/.prefixes or /etc/prefixes or prompt the user, but merely
                  configures the environment in accordance with the cmd line argument.

              (3) The batch command usage is mainly for running commands from
                  cron or running commands in another environment without changing
                  to that environment.

       Usage (1): . prefix                     (sets up environment)
             (2): . prefix <prefix>            (non-interactive setup)
             (3): prefix <prefix> <cmd> <args> (runs cmd configured for PREFIX)

       This manual page was written for the Debian distribution because the original program does not have a manual page.

AUTHOR

       Prefix was written by Stephen Adkins <spadkins@gmail.com>, and is part of the App-Options distribution.

       This manual page was written by Jotam Jr. Trejo <jotamjr@debian.org.sv>, for the Debian systems (but may be used by others).

                                                                   Oct 07, 2010                                                          PREFIX(1)