Re: access exported var

[Kerin Millar]

On Sun, 15 Jan 2023 23:59:54 -0600
Peng Yu <pengyu.ut@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/15/23, Kerin Millar <kfm@plushkava.net> wrote:
> > On Sun, 15 Jan 2023 23:10:41 -0600
> > Peng Yu <pengyu.ut@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I use the following C code to check env var.
> >>
> >> #include <stdlib.h>
> >> #include <stdio.h>
> >>
> >> int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
> >>   const char *s=getenv(argv[1]);
> >>   puts(s);
> >>   return 0;
> >> }
> >>
> >> The results are different depending on whether the variable is a
> >> scalar or an array (the result is always null). Why is it so? Why even
> >> in the last case, "a" of the first element of the array cannot be
> >> retrieved?
> >
> > Bash cannot export arrays. It's not particularly surprising. The value of an
> > environment variable is a NUL-terminated string; there's no universally safe
> > delimiter that could be used to join the array's elements.
> 
> But `echo "$Z"` print "a". Why bash can not treat exporting array as
> exporting the first element?

Technically, that would be possible. I can't identify an obvious use case but 
you could try making a feature request of it and seeing what happens.

-- 
Kerin Millar