Question

I’m trying to write a script that will allow me to set a bunch of environment variables in my env.
What I’m used to do is:

source ./script

But now I want my script to be in the PATH variable so I can call it from everywhere I want.

But calling it like that:

script

Will open a new shell and set the variables in the new shell, once the script is finished executing, I’d lose everything.

So I was wondering how I could do this.

Answer 1

Maybe you should use an alias.

Say your environment variables are in the file /path/to/stuff/my_env, just add an alias

alias my_env="source /path/to/stuff/my_env"

Then you just need to issue my_env and you’ll be done!

What you’re trying to achieve can’t be done from within a script, unless your script launches a new bash command, but that’s a bit awkward!