CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxenvironment-variablesglobal
user1155921
user1155921

Reputation: 62

Difference between global and local environment variables in Linux? Usage and Example

Path is an environment variable but i don't know whether its' a global or local environment variable. I need example for global and local environment variables and their usage in reference to Linux. Its a question from my paper and i didn't study global or local environment variables. However, I have gone through shell and environment variables. So, i guess one of them (shell and environment) is global and local.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 3728

Answers (1)

Josh Benson
Josh Benson

Reputation: 236

Because you specifically referenced the PATH variable, I'm going to assume you're referring to variables that impact a user in terminal mode on Linux. Even so, these two terms can have various meanings.

An example: Most linux distros will have a file called /etc/bashrc (or /etc/bash_profile, etc. depending on distro). This file will contain settings variables for the bash shell as determined by the system administrator. These are "global" or "environment" variables, and it includes the PATH variable, but it also sets things like whether or not some commands provide their output in color, what the shell prompt looks like, etc.

Some power-users will not be satisfied with these defaults, and want to change them. They can create a file called /home/poweruser/.bashrc, and inside they can override most if not all of the variables in /etc/bashrc. Another example of this would be creating a custom ~/.vimrc, or even setting variables temporarily on the command line like so:

$ LANG=utf8
$ echo $LANG
utf8

This link has more information on the differences between the two and how to look at what variables are set on your shell: http://howtolamp.com/articles/difference-between-local-and-environment-variables/

Upvotes: 1

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