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From: ninja@bradley.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: variables and shells
Message-ID: <10800003@bradley>
Date: Thu, 2-Apr-87 03:01:00 EST
Article-I.D.: bradley.10800003
Posted: Thu Apr  2 03:01:00 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Apr-87 02:39:12 EST
References: <1194@ethos.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:ethos.UUCP:1194:bradley:10800003:000:743
Nf-From: bradley.UUCP!ninja    Apr  2 02:01:00 1987


You can't pass values of shell variables back to parent shells, but
you can redirect the input of your shell to a shell script that 
changes the value of a variable.  This is the "." command, and I think
it's documented in the SH(1) manual page.  It works something like
this :

$TERM=dumb; export TERM
$ . reset	/* reset is a shell script that contains TERM=a980 */
$echo $TERM
a980

Note that reset could contain any shell commands to change whatever
you wanted.  I'm pretty sure (but not positive) that this is how getty
runs your .profile.  A good use for this is to run a script that
recovers your terminal after a bad exit from curses.  Many uses.

And for CSH users the analogous command is "source".

Frank McGee			ihnp4!bradley!ninja