Question

I have to bash scripts:

script1.sh

HELLO=hello
export HELLO
./script2.sh
echo $HELLO

script2.sh

echo $HELLO
HELLO=world
export $HELLO

The output is hello hello instead of hello world. How can I modify variables between scripts which call each other?

EDIT: Passing variables as arguments won’t work. I don’t know the number of variables which might be changed in script2.sh.

Answer 1

If you do not want to run the second script as a child process, you have to source it:

HELLO=hello
export HELLO
. ./script2.sh  # Note the dot at the beginning
echo $HELLO

No export is needed in the second script – you already told bash to export the variable.