How can I make an environment variable available outside of a KSH script?

Question

I have a KSH script that exports an environment variable (export SOME_VAR=123)

After running the script my current shell is unaffected and echo $SOME_VAR produces nothing.

I tried running . myScript.ksh but got the following error:

.: Permission denied.

Permissions for . are drwxr-xr-x

Any idea? (I'm not root)

What permissions does myScript.ksh have? Is it readable? (Using . name is the correct way, since a process cannot update its parent's environment, which is why running the script "as a script" did not work.)
The script's permissions are -rwxr-xr-x - and it runs when invoking it without . before it. Can it be related to the fact my shell is TCSH?

grawity · Answer 1 · 2011-08-29 13:37:05Z

You are using tcsh as your shell:

tcsh does not have a . command – only source.
```
> source myScript.ksh
```
In sh, ksh and bash shells, "." is a built-in command, unrelated to the "current directory" usage of "."

In csh and tcsh, no such built-in exists (the equivalent is named "source"), and using . will attempt to execute a directory, hence the "Permission denied" error.
tcsh is a csh derivative, and uses a very different syntax for setting environment variables:
```
setenv SOME_VAR 123
```
This matters because using ./source causes the file's contents be executed in the current shell, meaning they have to be valid tcsh syntax.

Thank you - so to summarize, I cannot do what I wanted with a KSH script executed in a TCSH shell, right?
@RonK: Right. If you want to change enviroment variables of your current shell, you have to use . or source, and for that you must use a script written specifically for your current shell.
@RonK: There is another possibility — write a script, in any language that outputs (echo's) the apropriate setenv lines, then tell tcsh to evaluate that script's output: eval `./myscript`; this is somewhat fragile, though — you have to be very careful with output quoting.

1 Answer