Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!ucbvax!CORY.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon From: dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Enviroment (was Re: Yea, but can an Amiga Shell do this....) Message-ID: <8808192105.AA16960@cory.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 19 Aug 88 21:05:30 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Lines: 31 :In article <1877@iscuva.ISCS.COM>, ricks@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Rick Schaeffer) : writes: :> Most importantly, a shell spawned by CSH should inherit :> it's parents environment. : :The problem is that for CLI programs there isn't a clear definition of what 1.3 has got enviroment variables. Guess how they're implemented! Yup, disk based. You have a directory called ENV:, containing files whos names are the enviroment variables and contents the contents for those variables. Eventually, C-A says, ENV: will become a device. (that device had better support Seek, Read, Write, Examine, ExNext, etc... though, when it comes). IT WORKS GREAT! I modified my shell to search ENV: for $ variables and aliases and it gives 'global variables' a whole new meaning. If you have a hard disk like I do, it is even better, because it takes no memory at all, just a minor amount of disk space. If you've got a cache (I don't at the moment) it is even better than better. And, even better than better than better, the 'variables' can be anything from a command-line type of thing to any type of file you wish... IFF or whatever. Frankly, I think ENV: should stay in the filing system. Amoung other things, you have a choice of making it semi-permanent (put ENV: on your hard disk or floppy), or temporary (put ENV: in RAM:). Making mine semi-permanent, I don't have to re-load the enviroment every time I boot up! -Matt