Hi,

I am new to linux and I have the following problem :

I am trying to set the environment variable HOST by typing the following in the command line :

export HOST = `hostname`

It is setting the variable correctly. When I say

echo $HOST

it gives the correct value.

But when I execute the same in a shell script, it does not work.
My shell script is

#!/bin/ksh
export HOST = `hostname`

I even tried without the #!/bin/ksh, but it does not make a difference.

Could somebody please shed some light on this problem?

Thanks in advance.

The problem is the way the shell executes a
script ... if you want the variable to exist AFTER
your script has run you need to source it rather
than running it.


Cheers,
Tink

When you export a variable it will only be available to child processes so unless you run it in your current shell it will not be available once the script exits.

If it is appropriate you could source the script though.

Thanks for the replies

my script name is test.ksh. I tried to source it by giving

. test.ksh

at the command line . It says

ksh: .: test.ksh: not found

if i say

source test.ksh

it says

ksh: source: not found

could someone help me please?