how t o read env variable in cygwin

i m trying to read environment variable in perl using $OSTY = $ENV{OSTYPE}; this will return os type as linux or solaris. but when i try for cygwin it returns empty string. is the some other syntax of way of finding value of env variable in cygwin -- View this message in context:

using nlink value

i am usign a perl script in which i try to find whether the direcory is leaf directory or not by seeing nlink value. i do it by $info = stat(.); $nlink = $info-nlink; this will give me the value of nlink for that directory. now i test if that directory is leaf