Re: Call for input on comp.unix.shell FAQ

From: Stephane CHAZELAS (stephane_chazelas_at_yahoo.fr)
Date: 07/17/03 

Date: 16 Jul 2003 22:17:04 GMT

Michael Wang wrote:
[...]
>>>> SHELL=/prefered/shell export SHELL
>>>> exec "$SHELL"
[...]
> Why should export be needed in the first place?

SHELL needs to be in the environment. It's likely to already be
in the environment (put there by login), but note that some
shells don't update the environment variable each time the
*shell* variable is modified.

With some shells:

SHELL=/bin/sh
export SHELL
env | grep '^SHELL='
SHELL=/bin/zsh
env | grep '^SHELL='
export SHELL
env | grep '^SHELL='

will output:

/bin/sh
/bin/sh
/bin/zsh 

-- 
Stéphane

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