Setting environment variables

[David C. Fox]

Erik Max Francis wrote:
> Sami Viitanen wrote:
> 
> 
>>Is there any other way to set variables than os.putenv().
>>
>>Putenv doesn't actually put any values to actual system variables..
>>
>>I'm trying to set CVSEDITOR variable automatically from script
>>so that user wouldn't have to set that him/herself. CVS can't use
>>variable
>>set with putenv().
> 
> 
> Yep, and this is a feature, at least in Unix operating systems. 
> Subshells cannot directly affect the operating environment of parent
> shells, and shouldn't try.  (One can do such things indirectly, but they
> require the cooperation of the parent shell, such as sourcing the output
> of a program, which is not an uncommon approach to the problem.)  I
> don't know if there's any way for Windows applications to affect parent
> environments, but I doubt it.
> 

In [t]csh:

   alias cvsscript "setenv CVSEDITOR `python myscript.py`"
   cvsscript

or miscellaneous variants in other shells.  Of course, you can't use 
cvsscript from within another subshell, or it will only set the variable 
in that subshell.

David