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From: laned@athena.ecs.csus.edu (Douglas A. Lane)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.os.msdos.misc,comp.os.msdos.programmer,alt.msdos.programmer
Subject: how to modify the parent DOS environment ??
Message-ID: <1991Apr8.183155.22185@csusac.csus.edu>
Date: 8 Apr 91 18:31:55 GMT
Sender: usenet@csusac.csus.edu (News account (alt))
Organization: California State University, Sacramento
Lines: 51

All:

	I have seen a zillion environment editors, but I want to do something
	very simple.. that has "avoided" me..  to change or set a environment
	variable.  Unfortunately the change done in my program is not 
	permanent (see the example below).

	Another wrinkle: if there are 3 shelled programs (versions of COMMAND.COM
	in memory) allow the program to modify only the parent, or all the 
	parent environments.

	Respond by e-mail please, any help would be appreciated.

Doug

	For example:
	   Write a program (called X) to set a env. var. called "HOME" 
	   to whatever is on the command line.  This is what happens when
	   I wrote a test program in C.  Note the second set statement HOME
	   is NO WHERE to be found.

	C> SET 
	COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM
	PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;
	PROMPT=$P $G

	C> X THIS IS A TEST
	; print current environment
	COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM
	PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;
	PROMPT=$P $G
	HOME=THIS IS A TEST

	C> SET 
	COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM
	PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;
	PROMPT=$P $G

- end example -

daLane (laned@athena.ecs.csus.edu) 
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