OT: setting variables

[Mike Erdely]

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 11:11:23PM -0400, Nick Guenther wrote:
> This confused me for SO LONG. The trick is to "source" the file
> instead of running it as so:
> . ./script
> or
> source ./script
> 
> You'd think "EXPORT" exports the value to the entire OS, but no, it
> only exports it beyond the that command line. It sort of makes sense
> in the context that can do this to pass variables to programs:
> $ VAR=VAL ./script
> 
> Unix is crazy.

Actually, read my explanation.  It will make sense to you then.

Also, export exports the variable to all future sub-shells.

Try this:
$ ksh
$ FOO=bar
$ echo $FOO
bar
$ ksh
$ echo $FOO

$ exit
$ export FOO=bar
$ ksh
$ echo $FOO
bar
$ exit
$ exit

-ME