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Environment variables

Environment variables

Windows

Environment variables in Powershell

Session (temporary) variables

Variables created by set are bound to the current session and not persistent.

$Env:FOO = "example"
$Env:FOO

Persistent variables

  • GUI: Windows Settings -> Advanced system settings -> Set Environment Variables.
  • Powershell: [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('KEY', 'VAL', 'Machine')
  • Cmd: SETX KEY VAL

Linux

Arch Wiki: environment variables

System-wide

  • /etc/profile is sourced by all POSIX-compatible shells upon login.
  • Files inside the /etc/profile.d/ directory will also be read.

Bash

  • ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile for login bash instances.
  • ~/.bashrc for every interactive bash instance.

Zsh

  • ~/.zshenv for environment variables in all zsh instances.
  • ~/.zprofile for every login zsh instance.
  • ~/.zshrc for every interactive zsh instance.

Note

zsh does not source ~/.profile by default because of the difference between bash and zsh syntaxes. You can add this line to ~/.zprofile or ~/.zshenv to make zsh shells read `~/.profile correctly.

~/.zshenv
skip_global_compinit=1
test -r ${HOME}/.profile && emulate sh -c 'source ${HOME}/.profile'

X Window

  • ~/.xinitrc is sourced by startx.
  • ~/.xprofile is sourced by display managers (e.g., GDM, SDDM)

Systemd and Wayland

  • ~/.config/environment.d/*.conf: sourced by systemd. Also, they are used in Wayland sessions where xinitrc and xprofile files are not available.
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