[comp.emacs] environment-hacking in Emacs

mly@PREP.AI.MIT.EDU (Richard Mlynarik) (03/01/88)

   Path: mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!mgm.mit.edu!wolfgang
   From: wolfgang@MGM.MIT.EDU (Wolfgang Rupprecht)
   Newsgroups: comp.emacs
   Subject: Re: Mail drop path for mode line
   Date: 29 Feb 88 05:05:16 GMT
   Sender: daemon@BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU

   You can change an emacs-childs environment variables via redefining
   the emacs variable process-environment. Here is some code for changing 
   (sub)shell variables from GnuEmacs. (Note current emacs variable that 
   (getenv "FOO") returns will not be updated.)

   [...]


Even better, if you compile emacs with the -DMAINTAIN_ENVIRONMENT
compilation flag (set in in config.h), you will have full
getenv/setenv-style control over the environment used not only by
Emacs' subprocesses, but that used by  Emacs itself (such as in $...
filename expansion). 

[Why this switch is not turned on by default in Emacs is something I
have never understood and am tired of fighting for.]