VMS Help
CRTL, getenv
*Conan The Librarian
|
Searches the environment array for the current process and
returns the value associated with a specified environment name.
Format
#include <stdlib.h>
char *getenv (const char *name);
name
One of the following values:
o HOME-Your login directory
o TERM-The type of terminal being used
o PATH-The default device and directory
o USER-The name of the user who initiated the process
o Logical name or command-language interpreter (CLI) symbolic
name
o An environment variable set with setenv or putenv
The case of the specified name is important.
In certain situations, the getenv function attempts to perform a
logical name translation on the user-specified argument:
1. If the argument to getenv does not match any of the
environment strings present in your environment array, getenv
attempts to translate your argument as a logical name by
searching the logical name tables indicated by the LNM$FILE_
DEV logical, as is done for file processing.
getenv first does a case-sensitive lookup. If that fails, it
does a case-insensitive lookup. In most instances, logical
names are defined in uppercase, but getenv can also find
logical names that include lowercase letters.
getenv does not perform iterative logical name translation.
2. If the logical name is a search list with multiple equivalence
values, the returned value points to the first equivalence
value. For example:
$ DEFINE A B,C
ptr = getenv("A");
A returns a pointer to "B".
3. If no logical name exists, getenv attempts to translate the
argument string as a CLI symbol. If it succeeds, it returns
the translated symbol text. If it fails, the return value is
NULL.
getenv does not perform iterative CLI translation.
If your CLI is the DEC/Shell, the function does not attempt a
logical name translation since Shell environment symbols are
implemented as DCL symbols.
NOTES
o In OpenVMS Version 7.1, a cache of OpenVMS environment
variables (that is, logical names and DCL symbols)
was added to the getenv function to avoid the library
making repeated calls to translate a logical name or
to obtain the value of a DCL symbol. By default, the
cache is disabled. If your application does not need to
track changes in OpenVMS environment variables that can
occur during its execution, the cache can be enabled
by enabling the DECC$ENABLE_GETENV_CACHE logical before
invoking the application.
o Do not use the setenv, getenv, and putenv functions
to manipulate symbols and logicals. Instead use the
OpenVMS library calls lib$set_logical, lib$get_logical,
lib$set_symbol, and lib$get_symbol. The *env functions
deliberately provide UNIX behavior, and are not a
substitute for these OpenVMS runtime library calls.
OpenVMS DCL symbols, not logical names, are the closest
analog to environment variables on UNIX systems. While
getenv is a mechanism to retrieve either a logical name
or a symbol, it maintains an internal cache of values for
use with setenv and subsequent getenv calls. The setenv
function does not write or create DCL symbols or OpenVMS
logical names.
This is consistent with UNIX behavior. On UNIX systems,
setenv does not change or create any symbols that will be
visible in the shell after the program exits.
x Pointer to an array containing the translated
symbol. An equivalence name is returned at
index zero.
NULL Indicates that the translation failed.