setting environment variables

[Walter Hofmann]

Hi,

I need to set an environment variable so that a python module which I'd
like to use finds the right shared library.

I'm using Linux, so doing

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/kde2/qt/lib python test.py

works. But I would prefer to do it in python so that one can start my
program by entering

./test.py

However, setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH with os.environ within the python
script (but before importing the library) is too late. The dynamic
linker will not find the library this way.

I then tried to use

#!/usr/bin/env LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/kde2/qt/lib python test.py

which, according to env's manpage should work. It doesn't, but hangs
instead in a tight loop consoming 100% CPU. Neither works the more
complex

#!/bin/bash -c 'LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/kde2/qt/lib python ./test.py'

which gives

wh at frodo:~/programming/qtpython > ./test.py
bash: - : unrecognized option
Usage:  bash [GNU long option] [option] ...
[...]

Finally, I found out that the following rather tricky (dual language)
code works, however it is ugly to say the best:

#!/bin/sh
LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/lib/qt-2.1.1/lib" "exec" "python" "$0" "$*"
del LD_LIBRARY_PATH
# python code starts here


My question:
Is anyone on this list aware of a cleaner way to to this?


Walter