ENVIRON(7)          NetBSD Miscellaneous Information Manual         ENVIRON(7)

NAME
     environ -- user process environment

SYNOPSIS
     extern char **environ;

DESCRIPTION
     An array of strings called the environment is made available by execve(2)
     when a process begins.  By convention these strings have the form
     ``name=value''.  The following names are used by various commands:

     AUDIOCTLDEVICE   The name of the audio control device to be used by
                      audioctl(1), audioplay(1) and audiorecord(1).

     AUDIODEVICE      The name of the audio device to be used by audioplay(1)
                      and audiorecord(1).

     BLOCKSIZE        The size of the block units used by several commands,
                      most notably df(1), du(1) and ls(1).  BLOCKSIZE may be
                      specified in units of a byte by specifying 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.

     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 pass-
                      word file passwd(5).

     LANG             Default for all NLS categories.  Only used if LC_ALL or
                      the environment variable for a particular NLS category
                      is not provided (LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES,
                      LC_MONETARY, LC_NUMERIC, or LC_TIME).

     LC_ALL           Override for all NLS categories.  If set, overrides the
                      values of LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES,
                      LC_MONETARY, LC_NUMERIC, and LC_TIME.

     LC_COLLATE       NLS string-collation order information.

     LC_CTYPE         NLS character classification, case conversion, and other
                      character attributes.

     LC_MESSAGES      NLS format for affirmative and negative responses.

     LC_MONETARY      NLS rules and symbols for formatting monetary numeric
                      information.

     LC_NUMERIC       NLS rules and symbols for formatting nonmonetary numeric
                      information.

     LC_TIME          NLS rules and symbols for formatting time and date
                      information.

     LIBC_DIAGASSERT  Control how the _DIAGASSERT() macro (from <assert.h>)
                      behaves once the assertion is raised.  Refer to
                      _DIAGASSERT(3) for more information.

     LOGNAME          The login name of the user.

     MALLOC_OPTIONS   Control the behaviour of the malloc() function.  Refer
                      to malloc(3) for more information.

     MIXERDEVICE      The name of the audio mixer device to be used by
                      mixerctl(1).

     PAGER            The program used for paginating the output of several
                      commands such as man(1).  If null or not set, the stan-
                      dard pagination program more(1) will be used.

     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:/usr/pkg/bin:/usr/local/bin'' initially
                      by login(1).

     PRINTER          The name of the default printer to be used by lpr(1),
                      lpq(1), and lprm(1).

     RCMD_CMD         When using the rcmd(3) function, this variable is used
                      as the program to run instead of rcmd(1).

     SHELL            The full pathname of the user's login shell.

     TERM             The kind of terminal for which output is to be prepared.
                      This information is used by commands, such as nroff(1)
                      which may exploit special terminal capabilities.  See
                      /usr/share/misc/termcap (termcap(5)) for a list of ter-
                      minal types.

     TERMCAP          The string describing the terminal in TERM, or, if it
                      begins with a '/', the name of the termcap file.  See
                      TERMPATH below, termcap(5), and termcap(3).

     TERMPATH         A sequence of pathnames of termcap files, separated by
                      colons or spaces, which are searched for terminal
                      descriptions in the order listed.  Having no TERMPATH is
                      equivalent to a TERMPATH of
                      ``$HOME/.termcap:/usr/share/misc/termcap''.  TERMPATH is
                      ignored if TERMCAP contains a full pathname.

     TIMEFORMAT       A strftime(3) format string that may be used by programs
                      such as dump(8) for formatting timestamps.

     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=US/Pacific date displays
                      the current time in California.  See tzset(3) for more
                      information.

     USER             The login name of the user.  It is recommended that por-
                      table 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.

SEE ALSO
     audioctl(1), audioplay(1), audiorecord(1), csh(1), ex(1), login(1),
     man(1), more(1), sh(1), execve(2), _DIAGASSERT(3), execle(3), malloc(3),
     rcmd(3), system(3), termcap(3), audio(4), termcap(5), nls(7), dump(8)

HISTORY
     The environ manual page appeared in 4.2BSD.

NetBSD 5.0_STABLE                July 5, 2005                NetBSD 5.0_STABLE
