UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

HI. I had an environment variable defined in my .bash_profile file and I deleted it. I opened a new terminal and looked inside .bash_profile and it's not there but when I type

Code:

printenv MYCONFIG

it reutrns what the value used to be in my .bash_profile still!! I did a grep for MYCONFIG and the only place it showed up was .bash_history, and I even tried deleting that! What is the command to not just print the environment variable but to print where it is coming from? Why is it still defined!?

There isn't one, because a var is just a var and contains no information on what defined it.

Open a new, separate session to see this take effect. It might still be inheriting the value from your old session if you run the new one inside it.

Do you mean reboot my computer? because I opened a new terminal and it was still there...but my bash_profile was devoid of it ?

No. How about ~/.bashrc, then, or /etc/profile, or /etc/bash/bashrc ?

MYCONFIG is not in any of those places. I had the same problem last week with another environment variable PROMPT_COMMAND where it was set to:

Code:

PROMPT_COMMAND="pwd"

and I was sick of looking at the working directory with every new line on the CL and it wouldn't go away until I explicitly said PROMPT_COMMAND="" !

please help

Try logging out of your GUI, then logging back in. Remember how environment variables work -- you inherit copies from whatever created your process. Maybe you're inheriting a copy from your GUI itself.

You could try:

Code:

grep -r "MYCONFIG" * 2> /dev/null

In your /home/username or for a more thorough search in / (although it may take a while!)