environmental variables Overview environmental variables The environment is a set of information that is read by all programs that run on your system. It consists of one or more en- vironmental variables that you set. For example, when you set the environmental variable PATH, you tell COHERENT that you wish to pass this information to all programs on your system, in- cluding COHERENT itself. By changing the environment, you can change the way a command works without rewriting any commands that you may have embedded in batch files, scripts, or makefiles. COHERENT uses the following environmental variables to set its environment. The programs that you write may use others that you define yourself, if you wish. ASKCC Have mail prompt for CC names HOME User's home directory LASTERROR Program that last generated an error MAIL File that holds user's mail messages PAGER User's preferred output filter PATH Directories that hold executable files PS1 User's default prompt PS2 Prompt when unbalanced quotation marks span a line SHELL Name the default shell TERM Name the default terminal type TIMEZONE User's current time zone USER Name user's ID ***** See Also ***** Lexicon COHERENT Lexicon Page 1