Re: [PATCH] scripts: Add 'environment' command.

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

David Thompson <dthompson2@worcester.edu> skribis:

> I don't think it's something "wrong" with your files, really, but it is
> incompatible with the way 'guix environment' currently operates.
>
> I took another look at nix-build to see how they do things.  They create
> a bashrc file in a temporary directory and run bash (or whatever
> $NIX_BUILD_SHELL is) with the '--rcfile' flag so that the user's bashrc
> isn't used.  We could do something similar, but right now I don't have
> any reason to believe that all shells accept an '--rcfile' option, so it
> could easily break other setups.

POSIX specifies the ‘ENV’ environment variable for that:

  http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/sh.html

So that’s one thing that could be used.  Apparently Bash checks
‘BASH_ENV’ instead, unless invoked as ‘sh’ (info "(bash) Bash Startup
Files").

In the longer run, another option would be to have a Bash built-in
command, in the form of a plug-in loaded with ‘enable FOO.so’, that
would modify the environment variables of the running Bash process
(recutils has an example of that.)

My 2¢,
Ludo’.