Preserve environments vars after shell script finishes

Question

How can I keep the environment variables, set from a shell script, after the script finishes running?

Use the export command: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7328223/unix-export-command — congusbongus, Feb 07 '13 at 02:09
@CongXu `export` passes variables down to the child, not up to the parent. — Beta, Feb 07 '13 at 02:11
Why are you asking? Why do you want to keep those environment variables? Do you really care about keeping all of them? Why does keeping e.g. `WINDOWID` or `SSH_AGENT_PID` is important to you? — Basile Starynkevitch, Feb 07 '13 at 06:36
You could also make your script a bash `function` defined in your `$HOME/.bashrc` — Basile Starynkevitch, Feb 07 '13 at 06:37

score 23 · Answer 1 · edited May 02 '21 at 21:51

23

This is not possible by running the script. The script spawns it's own sub-shell which is lost when the script completes.

In order to preserve exports that you may have in your script, call it

either as
```
. myScript.sh
```
or
```
source myScript.sh
```

Notice the space between the . and myScript.sh; also note that "source is a synonym for . in Bash, but not in POSIX sh, so for maximum compatibility use the period."

edited May 02 '21 at 21:51

toraritte

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answered Feb 07 '13 at 02:32

Tyler Jandreau

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What is the difference between "." and "./ "? – KolonUK Mar 24 '22 at 12:10

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 07 '13 at 03:30

11

run the script as follows:

source <script>

-OR-

. <script>

This will run the script in the current shell, and define variables in the current shell. The variables will then be retained in the current shell after the script is done.

answered Feb 07 '13 at 03:30

Ziffusion

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What is the difference between "." and "./ "? – KolonUK Mar 24 '22 at 12:10

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 07 '13 at 05:12

Environment variables exist the the environment that is private to each process. The shell passes a COPY of exported variables to it's children as their environment, but there is no way for them to pass their environment back to the parent or any process other than their children. You can print those variables and load them into the parent. Or as has been already mentioned, you can run your script in the current shell with either "source script" or ". script" (and you might need ./script if . isn't in your PATH). Some tools print their vars and the shell can load them using backticks like ssh-agent. That way whatever ssh-agent prints will be run as a command. If it prints something like "VAR1=VAL;VAR2=VAL2" that may do what you want.

Preserve environments vars after shell script finishes

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