Realize that this isn't completely out of the question... Note also that PERL and JAVA use environment variables like this (PERLLIB and CLASSLIB) for lookups... but these environments like to "call in some buddies" so the lookup mechanism makes more sense, there.
I'm not sure why we'd be desperate for an AWKLIB environment variable. In some ways it is "come as you are" enforcing more overt paths to be taken so that very little is hidden from the users... and, really, there have been enough times that PATH has befuddled some of the users I have supported who were actually pretty competent programmers. -soup On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 3:46 PM, McKown, John <[email protected]> wrote: > I actually saw this on another support forum and thought it was an > interesting question. So I thought that I'd ask it here to see if anyone has > any insight. > > There are a number of applications which use environment variables to specify > a set of subdirectories to search in order to find a file. Why isn't there a > generalized way to do this? Example: When looking for a command, if the > command's subdirectory is not specified, the shell will look for the command > in the directories listed in the $PATH environment variable. It might be > helpful to have this extended to a general case for fopen() and fdopen(). Can > anybody think of a reason why this would be unwise? If the variable were > unset, then it would only search the current working directory. If set, it > would only search the specified directory, excluding the cwd unless a period > were included somewhere within the set of directories in the variable. > > Just a weird question that sounded interestion. And, yes, I know how to > implement it myself in my own code. > > John McKown > Systems Engineer IV > IT > > Administrative Services Group > > HealthMarkets(r) > > 9151 Boulevard 26 * N. Richland Hills * TX 76010 > (817) 255-3225 phone * (817)-961-6183 cell > [email protected] * www.HealthMarkets.com > > Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message may contain confidential or > proprietary information. If you are not the intended recipient, please > contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original > message. HealthMarkets(r) is the brand name for products underwritten and > issued by the insurance subsidiaries of HealthMarkets, Inc. -The Chesapeake > Life Insurance Company(r), Mid-West National Life Insurance Company of > TennesseeSM and The MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company.SM > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 > -- John R. Campbell Speaker to Machines souperb at gmail dot com MacOS X proved it was easier to make Unix user-friendly than to fix Windows ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
