If you're using the default bash shell, then you can put it in several places (man bash). If you want it to be set when you login, I usually put it in .profile, where it will propagate to all programs. Many people set it in .bashrc, but I find this problematic, especially, if you append things to the path. They will get appended again when a child shell is invoked, and so on.
For example. Suppose you want the environment variable FOO set to "bar". In your home directory, put a file .profile and put: export FOO=bar Once you do this you will have to logoff and back on to see it's affect (since it is invoked at login). Gary -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
