There is no /etc/profile.local, only a /etc/profile.dos and /etc/profile. This is in suse 9.2. Art Brad Bourn wrote:

You could try putting it in /etc/profile.local

that gets sourced from /etc/profile (which is maintained by the system)

Or same thing for the pair

bash.bashrc & bash.bashrc.local

You could also use a script to start whatever program needs the var to set before calling the bin

B-)

On Wednesday 16 March 2005 09:36 am, Art Fore wrote:

...

I have tried setting PGDATA=/home/postres/data then export PGDATA This works, but when the machine reboots, it is gone. How can I make the permanent for root? I put it in the /home/postgres/.profile but this does not seem to work

Art

So would I creat a profile.local with only "PGDATA=/home/postgres/data" as the only line in it? Art Brad Bourn wrote:

Yes, it is true that the /etc/profile.local and bash.bashrc.local don't exist until you create them.

They are referenced here

/etc/profile line 244 - 248 # And now let's see if there is a local profile # (for options defined by your sysadmin, not SuSE Linux) # test -s /etc/profile.local && . /etc/profile.local

/etc/bash.bashrc line 247 - 251 # And now let's see if there is a local bash.bashrc # (for options defined by your sysadmin, not SuSE Linux) # test -s /etc/bash.bashrc.local && . /etc/bash.bashrc.local

That is how the magic happens.

B-)

On Wednesday 16 March 2005 10:19 am, Art Fore wrote:

...

There is no /etc/profile.local, only a /etc/profile.dos and /etc/profile. This is in suse 9.2.

Art

You do have to logout to get the new lines to take effect in your current environment. Or You can use the same "source" command that is in the script that calls it. On the line that does the work [test -s /etc/profile.local && . /etc/profile.local] what is happing is (3 fold) first the program "test" gets run with the parameter "-s /etc/profile.local" which test to see if the file exists. If it does, the "&&" means if the command to the left exits without an error code, run the command to the right, otherwise don't So if the test command works (the file is present) it then runs this command [. /etc/profile.local] the "." at the beginning is the actual ?bash? command called "source" to execute the contents of the file at the current shell command line. So to test the functionality of your profile.local, all you need to do is run the same command [. /etc/profile.local] Then test to see if you environment var is set [set | grep "PGDATA"] which should give you the setting to the right of the "=" in your script. Hope this helps B-) On Wednesday 16 March 2005 12:04 pm, Leendert Meyer wrote:

Note: only creating this file will not affect current shells. It will only affect newly created shells. It might be necessary to logout of KDE or GNOME, or even to go briefly to runlevel 1...

Cheers,

Leen

Art Fore wrote:

So would I creat a profile.local with only "PGDATA=/home/postgres/data" as the only line in it? I could be wrong, but I think it would be "export $PGDATA=/home/postgres/data" -- Joe Morris New Tribes Mission Email Address: Joe_Morris@ntm.org Registered Linux user 231871

On Wednesday 16 March 2005 2:05 pm, Joe Morris (NTM) wrote:

Art Fore wrote:

...

So would I creat a profile.local with only "PGDATA=/home/postgres/data" as the only line in it?

I could be wrong, but I think it would be "export $PGDATA=/home/postgres/data" On Wednesday 16 March 2005 3:23 pm, Leendert Meyer wrote: Please try that in a shell. And don't be surprised... ;)

Not to steal Leen's steam, the correct syntax is: "export PGDATA=/home/postgres/data" NOT: "export $PGDATA=/home/postgres/data" You set a variable using the variable name. You interpret the variable by placing a dollar sign in front of it. You can blame Stephen Bourne for that. Actually, in the older SH the syntax is: PGDATA=/home/postgres/data export PGDATA The newer POSIX shells expanded the syntax. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

On Wednesday 16 March 2005 4:15 pm, Randall R Schulz wrote:

Surely you would not want variables to be interpolated / dereferenced without a special signifier in a command interpreter. Far more of variable-name-like parameters you pass as arguments to programs are literals than are variable references. I was joking when I mentioned "blame".

Parameters passed to programs are generally literal strings on Linux and Unix. However, the shell could have been written to allow variable names to be used without the leading dollar sign. (Awk does that). I go back to FORTRAN, where variables were either floating point or integer depending on the first letter (FORTRAN is better now). I think that today, if someone were to write a totally new shell, he/she might take a different approach, as they did with the C shell at Berkeley. But, under the context of the tools Steve had when writing the shell, (TTY), he did a great job. In any case, we have a user group meeting and I've go to go to MIT through Boston traffic. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9