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Name

env - set environment for command invocation

Synopsis

/usr/bin/env [-i | -] [name=value] ... [utility [ arg ...]]

/usr/xpg4/bin/env [-i | -] [name=value] ... [utility [ arg ...]]

Availability

/usr/bin/env

SUNWcsu

/usr/xpg4/bin/env

SUNWxcu4

Description

The env utility obtains the current environment, modifies it according to its arguments, then invokes the utility named by the utility operand with the modified environment.

Optional arguments are passed to utility. If no utility operand is specified, the resulting environment is written to the standard output, with one name=value pair per line.

/usr/bin/env

If env executes commands with arguments, it uses the default shell /usr/bin/sh (see sh(1) ).

/usr/xpg4/bin/env

If env executes commands with arguments, it uses the XPG4-compliant shell /usr/xpg4/bin/sh, which is equivalent to /usr/bin/ksh (see ksh(1) ).

Options

The following options are supported:
-i | -
Ignore the environment that would otherwise be inherited from the current shell. Restricts the environment for utility to that specified by the arguments.

Operands

The following operands are supported:
name=value
Arguments of the form name=value modify the execution environment, and are placed into the inherited environment before utility is invoked.
utility
The name of the utility to be invoked. If utility names any of the special shell built-in utilities, the results are undefined.
arg
A string to pass as an argument for the invoked utility.

Examples

The following utility:

example% env -i PATH=/mybin mygrep xyz myfile

invokes the utility mygrep with a new PATH value as the only entry in its environment. In this case, PATH is used to locate mygrep, which then must reside in /mybin.

Environment

See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of env: LC_CTYPE , LC_MESSAGES , and NLSPATH .

Exit Status

If utility is invoked, the exit status of env is the exit status of utility; otherwise, the env utility is with one of the following values:
  1. Successful completion.
    1-125
    An error occurred.
  2. utility was found but could not be invoked.
  3. utility could not be found.

See Also

ksh(1) , sh(1) , exec(2) , profile(4) , environ(5)


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