Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!iuvax!bsu-cs!jdh
From: jdh@bsu-cs.UUCP (John Hiday)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: ENV: variables
Message-ID: <3876@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Date: 8 Sep 88 01:35:54 GMT
References: <8809070041.AA11163@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: jdh@bsu-cs.UUCP (John Hiday)
Organization: Ball State University UCS, Muncie, IN
Lines: 39


In article <8809070041.AA11163@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes:
>       Uh oh!  Well, let me put it this way.  Please keep the perspective
>that this is an AMIGA, *NOT* a large multi-user UNIX system.  You can't just
>keep a million copies of a possibly huge enviroment set lying around in
>memory now can you!....

This is another situation in which ASSIGNing to a path rather than to a
specific directory would work great.  Simply assign ENV: first to a
process specific directory, then to a system wide one.

If you want to redefine a variable for local use only, you just stick
it in the process-specific env directory.  That way each process only
needs its own copy of the variables which are different from the
system-wide ones.

Since it would simply be based on a path of directories, this approach
would not be limited to just a system-wide set and a process local set.
If you have a group of programs which need a special set of variables,
simply stick another entry into the ENV: path.

> [...] Private variables on the Amiga?  YOU BET!  Damn right, a
> requirement...  but not necessarily implemented by the enviroment
> variable's domain... more like local shell variables.  [...]

How's a call to getenv() going to pick off the value for a variable
which is only known by the shell?

> [...] And if you *really* want private enviroment variables simply make
> a sub-directory in ENV: ... but the program(s) would have to support
> it. [...]

Why make the program support it when you can do the same thing
transparently?

-- 
UUCP  : <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!jdh                 John Hiday
BITNET: 00JDHIDAY@BSUVAX1.BITNET            Ball State Univ Computing Services
GEnie : JDHIDAY                                               Muncie, IN 47306