----- Original Message -----

From: "Jean-Pierre A. Radley" <appl@jpr.com>

| $ JRA=test echo $JRA | | does not work in the superficially obvious manner, but it makes | sense | after I think about it -- it's like trying to use sudo with | redirection. | | That behavior is documented back to the v7 shell, I'm pretty sure, | though | my v7 UPM is at home. |

Your shell isn't behaving like mine, in that case. I start out in tcsh and:

jpradley:appl 6 sh $ unset JPR $ JPR=test echo $JPR

$ echo $JPR test

tcsh, not especially to my surprise, does not meet the SVID or POSIX, then. _Unix Shell Programming_, Kochan and Wood, 1985, Hayden, p 251: "Another Way To Pass Variables To A Subshell If you want to send the value of a variable to a subshell, there's another way to do it besides setting the variable and then exporting it. On the command line, you can precede the name of the command with the assignment of as many variables as you want. For example: DBHOME=/unx2/data DBID=452 dbrun places the variables DBHOME and DBID, and their indicated values, into the environment of dbrun, and then dbrun gets executed. *These variables will not be known to the current shell; they're created only for the execution of dbrun.*" (Emphasis mine). Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA #natog +1 727 647 1274