Why depend on UNIX environment variables?

Previously I have posted about how I find tools that depend on sourcing csh files to get environment variables set a real pain to deal with. Largely because I don't have good ways of automating such procedures, both for use and test. And also because of environment variable interference.

So, I ask myself: Q: why depend on environment variables?

Then I remember how excited I was to learn of shell environment variables.

By setting an environment variable I could arrange for a parameter to be passed from the outside world right into the middle of a tool. Without having to modify any of the interveing levels.

No need to create argument parsing code.

In fact, in Bell Labs type shells,argument parsers are implicitly created for environmrnt variables:

VAR1=val1 VAR2=val2 program options...

I hate (csh) environment based tools

I hate tools that have heavy, undocumented, environment dependencies.

csh scripts seem to be the classic example. Beware of anything that says

source file1
source file2
do this
source file3
do that

where the csh files you are source'ing mainly act by setting up environment variables, but also may act by side effects such as cd'ing.

---

Why do I hate these things? They are hard to automate. Especaly to automatically test.

Really, to automate I need to insert checks into the script above after each step. At least if it is flakey. (If it is not flakey and is all working, I don't care what it does. As long as I can put t in a black box, and don't have to let its side effects escape.)

---


Why do I hate these things?

So often the are designed for interactive use. And interfere with other stuff you may be using interactvely.

Oftentimes I need to fall back to re,oving all of my interactive customizations to get something like this working in a clean environment.

---

I have a script I call clear-env that deletes environment variables, and starts up new subshells. Has saved my bacon many times

However, today I am running into problems that depend on running exactly the sit standard initialization files, .login and .cshrc, before running any other csh-&**^&**^&^-source modules.

Testing: just (start) doing it

Trying to test something that I don;t know how to automate. In fact, my goal is to automate - but I can't automate it enough even to run the smallest self checking automated test. The blinking procedure only works, at all, interactively.

So, do what I can:

I can't run the program under test automatically. (Yet: I hope to change this.)

But the program under test does leave some output files, etc.

Therefore, I can automate CHECKING the output of the manual test.

Perhaps in a while I will be able to automate the whole thing.

--


It is amazing the sense of ease that even this small degree of automation brings.