Re: CVS commit: src/bin/sh

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Sat, 17 Mar 2018 22:52:51 +0300
    From:        Valery Ushakov <uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <20180317195251.GJ3278%pony.stderr.spb.ru@localhost>

  | Environment variable is a name/value pair stored in an environment

If you stopped there I'd agree with you.

  | that a C program can access via getenv() call.

That's one way - not the only way though, and isn't really material

  | Some C functions check
  | environment variables to change their behaviour.

And this is completely irrelevant - all kinds of different things
can be done with them, as above, they are just name/value
pairs.

  | Yes, shell "inherits" environment variables so that they become
  | exported shell variables. 

Where shells are a bit different than most other programs, is that
most others simply pass through the environment (of which the
environment vars are a part - often the whole but not necessarily)
with some of them making small changes.

The shells on the other hand completely dominate the environment,
generally consuming what is there at startup, and creating a whole
new environment for the programs that they run.

There is no real distinction between which shell variables are environment
variables and which are not - any might be - all of them might be.

If you're thinking about things purely as a C coder, writing C code, then
yes, there's a difference, but to the user of the shell, there isn't - all the
vars in every sh script are potentially environment variables, and (if the
script wants) can be inherited from, and exported to, other programs
through the environment.   Trying to split them up is futile.

Once again, what the section heading in the man page should be
should reflect more what makes the man page more usable, rather
than any meaningless debate about what is, and what is not, an
environment variable - it is even less important (a point you made about
a different issue a day or two ago) which mdoc markup macro gets
used to refer to them (Dv vs Ev vs Li ...)

kre