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What's a concise way to check that environment variables are set in a Unix shell script?

Asked 2008-11-21T01:11:27.913
526

I've got a few Unix shell scripts where I need to check that certain environment variables are set before I start doing stuff, so I do this sort of thing:

if [ -z "$STATE" ]; then
    echo "Need to set STATE"
    exit 1
fi  

if [ -z "$DEST" ]; then
    echo "Need to set DEST"
    exit 1
fi

which is a lot of typing. Is there a more elegant idiom for checking that a set of environment variables is set?

EDIT: I should mention that these variables have no meaningful default value - the script should error out if any are unset.

bash unix shell
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2 Answers

56

Your question is dependent on the shell that you are using.

Bourne shell leaves very little in the way of what you're after.

BUT...

It does work, just about everywhere.

Just try and stay away from csh. It was good for the bells and whistles it added, compared the Bourne shell, but it is really creaking now. If you don't believe me, just try and separate out STDERR in csh! (-:

There are two possibilities here. The example above, namely using:

${MyVariable:=SomeDefault}

for the first time you need to refer to $MyVariable. This takes the env. var MyVariable and, if it is currently not set, assigns the value of SomeDefault to the variable for later use.

You also have the possibility of:

${MyVariable:-SomeDefault}

which just substitutes SomeDefault for the variable where you are using this construct. It doesn't assign the value SomeDefault to the variable, and the value of MyVariable will still be null after this statement is encountered.

answered 2008-11-21T01:45:52.710
54

Surely the simplest approach is to add the -u switch to the shebang (the line at the top of your script), assuming you’re using bash:

#!/bin/sh -u

This will cause the script to exit if any unbound variables lurk within.

answered 2011-10-26T15:21:34.573

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