Hi There,

I have few multiple script which are pulling data from password protected http site. Unfortunately those have to get executed separately. Those script are around in number and I have created variable in every script for --http-user & --http-password; can I create global variable which can be then used in those multiple files so that I dont have to keep changing in those 8 scripts.

TIA
Blason R

If the processes don't share a parent process then perhaps drawing the value from a configuration file might be the best idea.

Sorry wrong post.

???

Perhaps I don't understand your question correctly.

What I am saying is that if you have a variable which you have to declare in 8 separate scripts, and the variable changes frequently, then why don't you put that variable's value into a configuration file and get each script to read the value of the variable from the file. That way you only need to change the contents of the configuration file if the variable's value changes, not any of the 8 scripts.

Edit: I started constructing this reply while you were editing your previous post, and when I finally posted it, it appears to have replaced your original post which I quoted in my reply. An interesting feature, but it makes my post look stupid now.

Can you please elabore more on this? I mean I need I have 8 scripts which has a stanza something like this

USER=abcd
PPASS=qwert123

wget -t 3 --http-user $USER --http-password $PPASS https://xxxxxxx.xxxxx/cnf.tgz

SO I was wondering instead of entering password at eight times can we define global variable and call at those 8 scripts?

Search on the internet for bash read variable from file (I'm assuming that you're using Bash, although you haven't specified which scripting language you're using). You could consider sourcing the configuration file.

On the other hand, if all the processes are called by the same parent process, then you could look into creating environment variables in the parent process which are inherited by the child processes. Again, we don't know how you are calling your processes.

you can define environment variables yes:
but you cannot define them from within those scripts; they would be lost again when the shell is closed.
so you have to define the variables at some earlier point.
e.g.:

• in the login shell (on my system, i could do this via /etc/bash.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile, or /etc/profile)
• in a parent script, that would in turn call all the other scripts.

PS: assuming bash.

But $USER is set by the shell and should not be altered in the calling shell.
Better set the variables in a separate file "http-vars"
And in each script source it with
Note: if the file contains a password then it makes sense to read-protect it for other users.

You could put the variables in a file and use command substitution with cat. $(cat pass) will pass the output of the command.