environ(5)


environ -- user environment

Description

When a process begins execution, exec routines make available an array of strings called the environment [see exec(2)]. By convention, these strings have the form variable=value, for example, PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin. These environment variables provide a way to make information about a program's environment available to programs. The environment variables described below can be used by applications and are expected to be set in the target runtime environment.

Further names may be placed in the environment by the export command and name=value arguments in sh(1), or by exec(2). It is unwise to conflict with certain shell variables that are frequently exported by .profile files: MAIL, PS1, PS2, IFS [see profile(4)].

HOME

The name of the user's login directory, set by login(1) from the password file [see passwd(4)].

LANG

The program's locale. Locales consist of files that describe the conventions appropriate to some nationality, culture, and language. The $HOME/.env file usually sets the LANG variable. This file is set by the Account Manager and overrides the system defaults. If the $HOME/.env file is not present on the system, /etc/default/locale is used.

Generally, users determine which files are selected by manipulating the environment variables described below. For background, see setlocale(3C).

Locales are partitioned into categories LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, LC_MONETARY, LC_NUMERIC, and LC_TIME (see below for what the categories control). LC_ALL overrides all these categories. Each category has a corresponding environment variable that the user can set to specify that category's locale:

   	LC_CTYPE=fr[ancais]

When the LC_ALL variable is set, it overrides all other LC_* variables, as well as the LANG setting. When LC_ALL is not set, the LANG environment variable is searched if the environment variable for a category is unset or empty:

   	LANG=fr
   	LC_COLLATE=de[utsche]

sets all the categories but LC_COLLATE to French. If LANG is unset or empty, the default C locale is used.


LC_ALL
specifies the name of the locale to be used. This value overrides values for locale categories specified by the LANG setting or any other LC_ category environment variable.

LC_COLLATE
specifies the collation order used. The information for this category is stored in a database created by the colltbl(1M) command. This environment variable affects sort(1), strcoll(3C), and strxfrm(3C).

LC_CTYPE
specifies character classification, character conversion, and widths of multibyte characters. The information for this category is stored in a database created by the chrtbl(1M) or wchrtbl(1M) commands. The default C locale uses the 7-bit US ASCII character set. This environment variable affects many commands and functions, among them, cat(1), ed(1), ls(1), vi(1), ctype(3C), and mbchar(3C).

LC_MESSAGES
specifies the message database used. A command or application may have French and German message databases, for example. Message databases are created by the mkmsgs(1) or gencat(1) commands. This environment variable affects gettxt(1), srchtxt(1), catgets(3C), and gettxt(3C), and every command that generates locale-specific output messages.

LC_MONETARY
specifies the monetary symbols and delimiters used. The information for this category is stored in a database created by the montbl(1M) command. This environment variable affects localeconv(3C).

LC_NUMERIC
specifies the decimal and thousands delimiters. The information for this category is stored in a database created by the chrtbl(1M) or wchrtbl(1M) commands. The default C locale uses a period (.) as the decimal delimiter and no thousands delimiter. This environment variable affects localeconv(3C), printf [see fprintf(3S)], scanf [see fscanf(3S)], and strtod(3C).

LC_TIME
specifies date and time formats. The information for this category is stored in a database specified in strftime(4). The default C locale uses US date and time formats. This environment variable affects many commands and functions, among them, at(1), calendar(1), date(1), getdate(3C), and strftime(3C).

MSGVERB

Controls which standard format message components fmtmsg selects when messages are displayed to stderr [see fmtmsg(1) and fmtmsg(3C)].

SEV_LEVEL

Defines severity levels and associates and prints strings with them in standard format error messages [see addseverity(3C), fmtmsg(1), and fmtmsg(3C)].

NETPATH

A colon-separated list of network identifiers. A network identifier is a character string used by the Network Selection component of the system to provide application-specific default network search paths. A network identifier must consist of non-NULL characters and must have a length of at least 1. No maximum length is specified. Network identifiers are normally chosen by the system administrator. A network identifier is also the first field in any /etc/netconfig file entry. NETPATH thus provides a link into the /etc/netconfig file and the information about a network contained in that network's entry. /etc/netconfig is maintained by the system administrator. The library routines described in getnetpath(3N) access the NETPATH environment variable.

NLSPATH

Contains a sequence of templates which catopen(3C) uses when attempting to locate message catalogs. Each template consists of a pathname containing one or more optional substitution fields.

For example:

   	NLSPATH="/system/nlslib/%N.cat"

specifies that catopen should look for all message catalogs in the directory /system/nlslib, where the catalog name should be constructed from the name parameter passed to catopen, %N, with the suffix .cat.

Substitution fields consist of a % symbol, followed by a single-letter keyword. The following keywords are currently defined (where locale elements are described below):

%N The value of the name parameter passed to catopen.
%L The value of locale.
%l The language element from locale.
%t The territory element from locale.
%c The codeset element from locale.
%% A single % character.
%A The value of the archive portion of a name@archive parameter passed to catopen.

 %N   The value of the name parameter passed to catopen.
 %L   The value of locale.
 %l   The language element from locale.
 %t   The territory element from locale.
 %c   The codeset element from locale.
 %%   A single % character.
 %A   The value of the archive portion of a name@archive
      parameter passed to catopen.

locale provides the ability to specify the user's requirements for native language, local customs, and character set, as an ASCII string in the form

   language[_territory[.codeset]]

A user who speaks German as it is spoken in Austria and has a terminal which operates in ISO 8859/1 codeset, would want the setting of the locale to be

   De_A.88591

An empty string is substituted if the specified value is not currently defined. The separators ``_'' and ``.'' are not included in %t and %c substitutions.

Templates defined in NLSPATH are separated by colons (:). A leading colon or two adjacent colons (::) is equivalent to specifying %N.

For example:

   	NLSPATH=":%N.cat:/nlslib/%L/%N.cat"

indicates to catopen that it should look for the requested message catalog in name, name.cat, and /nlslib/locale/name.cat.

The %A keyword is provided for compatibility with SCO OpenServer applications that use the name@archive form of the name argument to catopen. If @archive is present, then a %A in NLSPATH is replaced with the archive portion of the name passed to catopen. If @archive is not present, then nothing is substitued for %A in NLSPATH.

For information on setting up a locale, see setlocale(3C).

PATH

The sequence of directory prefixes that sh(1), time(1), nice(1), nohup(1), and so on apply in searching for a file known by an incomplete path name. The prefixes are separated by colons (:). login(1) sets PATH=/usr/bin. [For more detail, see sh(1).]

SHELL

When the shell is invoked, it scans the environment for this name. If it is found and rsh is the filename part of its value, the shell becomes a restricted shell. The value of this variable should be specified with an absolute pathname. The variable is used by make(1), ksh(1), sh(1), and vi(1), among other commands.

TERM

The kind of terminal for which output is to be prepared. This information is used by commands, such as vi(1), which may exploit special capabilities of that terminal.

TZ

Time zone information. The contents of the environment variable named TZ are used by the functions ctime(3C), localtime [see ctime(3C)], strftime(3C), and mktime(3C) to override the default time zone.

If the first character of TZ is a colon (``:''), as in:

   TZ=:name
then name is assumed to be a full or relative path to a tic-compiled timezone description (see tic(1M)). If the first character of name is a slash (``/''), then name is assumed to be a full pathname; otherwise, the directory /usr/lib/locale/TZ/ is searched for a file with the supplied name.

If the first character of TZ is not a colon (:), TZ has the form:

   	stdoffset[dst[offset],[start[/time],end[/time]]]

std and dst
Three or more bytes that are the designation for the standard (std) and daylight savings time (dst) time zones. Only std is required, if dst is missing, then daylight savings time does not apply in this locale. Upper- and lowercase letters are allowed. Any characters except a leading colon (:), digits, a comma (,), a minus (-), or a plus (+) are allowed.

offset
Indicates the value one must add to the local time to arrive at Coordinated Universal Time. The offset has the form:
   	hh[:mm[:ss]]

The minutes (mm) and seconds (ss) are optional. The hour (hh) is required and may be a single digit. The offset following std is required. If no offset follows dst, daylight savings time is assumed to be one hour ahead of standard time. One or more digits may be used; the value is always interpreted as a decimal number. The hour must be between 0 and 24, and the minutes (and seconds) if present between 0 and 59. Out of range values may cause unpredictable behavior. If preceded by a ``-'', the time zone is east of the Prime Meridian; otherwise it is west (which may be indicated by an optional preceding ``+'' sign).


start/time,end/time
Indicates when to change to and back from daylight savings time, where start/time describes when the change from standard time to daylight savings time occurs, and end/time describes when the change back happens. Each time field describes when, in current local time, the change is made.

The formats of start and end are one of the following:


Jn
The Julian day n (1 LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO n LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 365). Leap days are not counted. That is, in all years, February 28 is day 59 and March 1 is day 60. It is impossible to refer to the occasional February 29.

n
The zero-based Julian day (0 LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO n LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 365). Leap days are counted, and it is possible to refer to February 29.

Wn[.d]
Specifies a change to or from the alternate timezone on day d (default of ``0'' or Sunday) of week number n, where the first day of the year is in week 1.

Mm.n.d
The d[th] day, (0 LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO d LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 6) of week n of month m of the year (1 LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO n LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 5, 1 LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO m LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 12), where week 5 means ``the last d-day in month m'' which may occur in either the fourth or the fifth week). Week 1 is the first week in which the d[th] day occurs. Day zero is Sunday.

Implementation-specific defaults are used for start and end if these optional fields are not given.

The time has the same format as offset except that no leading sign (``-'' or ``+'') is allowed. The default, if time is not given is 02:00:00.

Compatibility

Previous releases supported the use of a semicolon (``;'') as a synonym for a comma (``,'') in TZ syntax (for XENIX system compatibility). This is disallowed by X/Open System Interfaces and Headers, Issue 4, Version 2 conformance tests, and so is no longer supported.

References

addseverity(3C), cat(1), catgets(3C), catopen(3C), chrtbl(1M), colltbl(1M), ctime(3C), ctype(3C), date(1), ed(1), exec(2), fmtmsg(1), fmtmsg(3C), fprintf(3S), fscanf(3S), gencat(1), getdate(3C), getnetpath(3N), gettxt(1), gettxt(3C), localeconv(3C), login(1), ls(1), mbchar(3C), mkmsgs(1), mktime(3C), montbl(1M), netconfig(4bnu), nice(1), nohup(1), passwd(4), profile(4), setlocale(3C), sh(1), sort(1), srchtxt(1), strcoll(3C), strftime(3C), strftime(4), strtod(3C), strxfrm(3C), time(1), timezone(4), vi(1), wchrtbl(1M)
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 25 April 2004