Laurenz Albe <albe@culturallnospam.com> wrote:
> Murphy <m@urphy.com> wrote:
>>>> The MySQL manual states the following command should be issued:
>>>>
>>>> setenv PATH ${PATH}:/usr/local/mysql/bin
>>>
>>> That is correct if and only if you (or MySQL) use it in a csh shell.
>>> On other shells the following will work:
>>>
>>> PATH=${PATH}:/usr/local/mysql/bin
>>> export PATH
>>
>> csh shell ?... I use it under KDE in the "Shell" windows as SU
>
> Hopefully (and probably) this is not a C shell.
> Look at the output of 'ps' and you should know.
>
>> I'm guessing "export PATH" displays the current value of the PATH
>> environment variable however when I issue this command nothing is
>> displayed, I would have expected some std values to be set for PATH or is
>> the default PATH value blank under Slackware/Linux ?
>
> From your response it is obvious that you know very little about
> environment variables and shells in general.
> That is ok, but you should read up on these things as they are ubiquitous
> in Linux.
>
> The shell is the command interpreter that runs inside your
> KDE window. There are several, among them bash, ksh and csh.
>
> If you start a program (e.g. MySQL), it inherits all environment variables.
> Type 'setenv' in csh and 'export' else to get a list of all environment
> variables.
> In bsh-type shells you have to 'export' a variable to add it to the
> environment.
> These variables typically modify the behaviour of a program (PATH is
> the search path for executables).
>
> You can use 'echo $PATH' to display the current value of PATH.
>
> It seems like you are trying to start MySQL as user 'root'.
> I don't know if that is correct; read the documentation.
> Never use root when you can avoid it.
>
> Some pointers for further reading (apart form a web search):
> 'man bash', section ENVIRONMENT; the first paragraph of the PARAMETERS
> section; and particularly the 'export' entry in the SHELL BUILTIN
> COMMANDS section.
>
> Yours,
> Laurenz Albe

Another good source for further reading is "UNIX In A Nutshell" from
O'Reilly. Good for sh/bash/ksh/csh shells, and is shorter than the
bash man page!

--------------------------------------------
John Bleichert - syborg@earthlink.net
"Conclamatum est, poculatum est"