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ENVIRON(7)		Miscellaneous Information Manual	    ENVIRON(7)

NAME
       environ -- user environment

SYNOPSIS
       extern char **environ;

DESCRIPTION
       An  array  of strings, called the environment is	made available to each
       process by execve(2)  when  a  process  begins.	 By  convention	 these
       strings	have  the form name=value, and are referred to as "environment
       variables".  A process can query, update, and delete these strings  us-
       ing  the	getenv(3), setenv(3), and unsetenv(3) functions, respectively.
       The shells also provide commands	to manipulate  the  environment;  they
       are described in	the respective shell manual pages.

       What  follows  is  a  list of environment variables typically seen on a
       Unix system.  It	includes only those variables that a user  can	expect
       to  see during their day-to-day use of the system, and is far from com-
       plete.  Environment variables specific to a particular program  or  li-
       brary  function	are documented in the "ENVIRONMENT" section of the ap-
       propriate manual	page.

ENVIRONMENT
       BLOCKSIZE	The size of the	block units used by  several  disk-re-
			lated  commands,  most notably df(1), du(1) and	ls(1).
			BLOCKSIZE may be specified in units of a byte by spec-
			ifying a number, in units of a kilobyte	by  specifying
			a  number  followed  by	 `K'  or  `k',	in  units of a
			megabyte by specifying a number	 followed  by  `M'  or
			`m', and in units of a gigabyte	by specifying a	number
			followed  by `G' or `g'.  Sizes	less than 512 bytes or
			greater	than a gigabyte	are ignored.  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	termi-
			nal 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 (let-
			ter, space, digit, etc.) and for interpreting byte se-
			quences	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  de-
			fault  in  /var/mail, used by mail(1), sh(1), and many
			other mail clients.

       MANPATH		The sequence  of  directories,	separated  by  colons,
			searched by man(1) when	looking	for manual pages.

       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  information which is longer than the cur-
			rent display.

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

       POSIXLY_CORRECT	When set to any	value, this environment	variable modi-
			fies the behaviour of certain commands to (mostly) ex-
			ecute in a strictly POSIX-compliant manner.

       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  pre-
			pared.	 This information is used by commands, such as
			nroff(1) (ports/textproc/groff)	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 de-
			scriptions 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.  It	 is  recommended  that
			portable applications use LOGNAME instead.

       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 fre-
       quently 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 Version 7 AT&T UNIX.

FreeBSD	13.2			August 5, 2020			    ENVIRON(7)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | HISTORY

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