This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface
Contents
Application Usage
Note that, unless X was previously marked readonly, the value of "$?" after:
export X=$(false)
will be 0 (because export successfully set X to the empty string) and that execution continues, even if
set-e is in effect. In order to detect command substitution failures, a user must separate the
assignment from the export, as in:
X=$(false)
export X
Asynchronous Events
Default.
Consequences Of Errors
Default.
Thefollowingsectionsareinformative.Copyright
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard
for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original
IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document.
The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced
during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2017 EXPORT(1POSIX)
Description
The shell shall give the export attribute to the variables corresponding to the specified names, which
shall cause them to be in the environment of subsequently executed commands. If the name of a variable is
followed by =word, then the value of that variable shall be set to word.
The export special built-in shall support the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section12.2,
UtilitySyntaxGuidelines.
When -p is specified, export shall write to the standard output the names and values of all exported
variables, in the following format:
"export %s=%s\n", <name>, <value>
if name is set, and:
"export %s\n", <name>
if name is unset.
The shell shall format the output, including the proper use of quoting, so that it is suitable for
reinput to the shell as commands that achieve the same exporting results, except:
1. Read-only variables with values cannot be reset.
2. Variables that were unset at the time they were output need not be reset to the unset state if a
value is assigned to the variable between the time the state was saved and the time at which the
saved output is reinput to the shell.
When no arguments are given, the results are unspecified.
Environment Variables
None.
Examples
Export PWD and HOME variables:
export PWD HOME
Set and export the PATH variable:
export PATH=/local/bin:$PATH
Save and restore all exported variables:
export -p > temp-file
unset alotofvariables
... processing
. temp-fileExit Status
0 All name operands were successfully exported.
>0 At least one name could not be exported, or the -p option was specified and an error occurred.
Extended Description
None.
Future Directions
None.
Input Files
None.
Name
export — set the export attribute for variables
Operands
See the DESCRIPTION.
Options
See the DESCRIPTION.
Output Files
None.
Prolog
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface
may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface
may not be implemented on Linux.
Rationale
Some historical shells use the no-argument case as the functional equivalent of what is required here
with -p. This feature was left unspecified because it is not historical practice in all shells, and some
scripts may rely on the now-unspecified results on their implementations. Attempts to specify the -p
output as the default case were unsuccessful in achieving consensus. The -p option was added to allow
portable access to the values that can be saved and then later restored using; for example, a dot script.
See Also
Section2.14, SpecialBuilt-InUtilities
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section12.2, UtilitySyntaxGuidelinesStderr S
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
Stdin
Not used.
Stdout
See the DESCRIPTION.
Synopsis
export name[=word]...
export -p
