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Date:	Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:06:21 +0200
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From:	"Ehud Karni" <ehud AT unix DOT mvs DOT co DOT il>
To:	ebb9 AT byu DOT net
Cc:	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com, steve DOT rainbird AT mssint DOT com
Subject:	Re: Unusual environemtal variables
In-reply-to:	<494BA56A.7070009@byu.net> (message from Eric Blake on Fri, 19 Dec 2008 06:45:14 -0700)
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On Fri, 19 Dec 2008 06:45:14 -0700, Eric Blake <ebb9 AT byu DOT net> wrote:
>
> According to Steve Rainbird on 12/19/2008 2:22 AM:
> SR:> When i run a Fuijitsu Cobol program it requires environmental variables
> SR:> starting with the @ sign.
>
> That is inherently non-portable.  POSIX states that "Other characters may
> be permitted by an implementation; applications shall tolerate the
> presence of such names," but does not require applications to be able to
> create such names.
>
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap08.html#tag_08
>
> SR:>
> SR:> Is there any way around this?
>
> You'll have to set it in Windows, prior to starting bash, as there is no
> way to make bash create variables not starting with something from the
> portable set [_a-zA-Z].

This behavior (accepting names of only ASCII Alpha and _) is a bash self
imposed limitation. If you use csh (or tcsh) names with other characters
are supported too.

So you can use csh's: setenv "@FOO" "value".
You can also use the env command to bypass bash limitation like this:
    exec env "@FOO=bar" exec /bin/bash -i
Note the 2 `exec' if you do not want to spawn more processes.

Ehud.


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