When setting up a variable in .bashrc, should I use this?
export VAR=value
Or would this be enough?
VAR=value
What is exactly the difference (if there is one)?
Linux – the best way to set an environment variable in .bashrc
bashenvironment-variableslinuxshell
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Best Answer
The best way
The difference
Doing
only sets the variable for the duration of the script (
.bashrcin this case). Child processes (if any) of the script won't have VAR defined, and once the script exitsVARis gone.explicitly adds
VARto the list of variables that are passed to child processes. Want to try it? Open a shell, doThe new shell gets the default prompt. If instead you do something like
the new shell gets the prompt you just set.
Update: as Ian Kelling notes below variables set in
.bashrcpersist in the shell that sourced.bashrc. More generally whenever the shell sources a script (using thesource scriptnamecommand) variables set in the script persist for the life of the shell.