Environment variables

rumi2 · 01-17-2007, 06:39 PM

Hi

I am an newbie and lots of computer terms are new to me.
Can you please explain to me what does environment variable means?

I search for an answer in google but there is no clear answer i found.

thanks
rumi

Rickead2000 · 01-17-2007, 06:43 PM

Environmental variables are system wide variables containing information about your system and your system set up.

They hold information including paths to certain libraries.

Try typing...

Code:

env

in to a console - that will list all of the environmental variables set on your system.

michaelk · 01-17-2007, 06:44 PM

In technical terms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_variable

A good example is the path environment. When you want to run an application from the command line if you do not include the complete path the shell will search thru the directories listed in the path environment and if not found will display an error or if found run the application. Unlike windows linux does not search the current working directory.