UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

hi all,

My newbie question is: where is the "env" file?

I can define some settings via .profile (with Korn Shell). However, where is the env file that specifies the default PATH, LANG, DISPLAY, TZ... etc?

I am using SPARC/ Solaris 8. Thanks in advance.

try to read man page of env and environ; this may answer your
question.

Take a look into /etc/profile ... thats executed before the user .profile

there can be also some files like .?shrc (depending on the used shell) or .dtprofile/.dtlogin (used of youre login via X) in the home-dir of the user.

Hi,

I have been following the instructions on this topic to search for the env file, so far all env files i have found are executables. I'd like to find the source file so I can take a look into it and figure out the default settings for an environment. I have created a user but not sure if I would need to customize it for this user. However, in the user's .profile, i need to know where the env file is so I can set the ENV variable.

I have created this user with ksh as the login shell.

I appreciate any suggestions or ideas.

Thanks,

Rachael

I put my .env file in my home directory, but there's a little more to it.

My .env file defines a bunch of functions and aliases that I want available in all of my interactive shells. On the other hand, I would prefer that my ksh scripts ignore the .env file since they do not need the aliases and it would slow them down. This is a common situation and I use the standard ksh trick to address it:

Code:

FILE=$HOME/.env
ENV='${FILE[(_$-=1)+(_=0)-(_$-!=_${-%%*i*}}]}'
export ENV FILE

This treats FILE as an array where only ${FILE[0]} has a value. That complex subscript computes to 0 for interactive shells and to 1 for non-interactive shells. This trick originates with Dr. Korn himself. It's in his book.