Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!mailrus!ames!necntc!dandelion!ulowell!cbmvax!jesup
From: jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Shell requests (was Re: Yea, but can an Amiga Shell do this....)
Message-ID: <4527@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 20 Aug 88 21:25:18 GMT
References: <1836.AA1836@heimat> <3782@hcr.UUCP> <1877@iscuva.ISCS.COM> <3816@hcr.UUCP>
Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 24

In article <3816@hcr.UUCP> edwin@hcrvax.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) writes:
>
>Comment: If the shell were to be changed to inherit the environment,
>please use Manx "set" style environment vars. (sounds like a type of
>yoghourt, eh?) I think this is what they are going to be using in 1.3 and
>1.4 and this would be an easy way of exporting the environment while
>remaining upwardly compatible.

	Just to correct a misconception, Manx env vars are NOT compatible
with 1.3 ENV: vars.  1.3 Env vars are stored in a filesystem, usually
ram:, but it could be assigned anywhere.  To access and env var, merely
do an Open("Env:varname",MODE_OLDFILE) and if it exists read it in.

	The Manx env vars are stored in a fake library (no entry points,
just a placeholder so it can be found), with a pointer to a contiguous
block of memory storing all the env vars.  Any time a var is changed or added,
it has to allocate a new hunk of memory for all the vars, make a new list
of them, and free the old one.

	Jim Goodnow may be modifying Manx C to allow use of 1.3 env vars
(I'd be suprised if he didn't).

-- 
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup