ENV(1)

📦
version 9.10 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 ENV(1) — bestie edition 💖

okay so this is env, and it lives in the User Commands part of the manual. it's a User Commands girlie. let's get into it.

✨ NAME ✨

env — run a program in a modified environment. that's it, that's the whole vibe. 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

env [OPTION]... [-] [NAME=VALUE]... [COMMAND [ARG]...]

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

Set each NAME to VALUE in the environment and run COMMAND. like, you're curating the vibes before the program even walks in the room. 💅

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. (yes bestie, if a long option needs a value, the short one needs it too. no skipping.) ✨

  • -a, --argv0=ARG — pass ARG as the zeroth argument of COMMAND. yes, the zeroth. the secret one. the one nobody checks. 👑
  • -i, --ignore-environment — start with an empty environment. clean slate, no baggage, healing era. 🌈
  • -0, --null — end each output line with NUL, not newline. NUL! not a newline, bestie. it's giving xargs -0 energy. 🙈
  • -u, --unset=NAME — remove variable from the environment. bye bitch, unfollowed. ✨
  • -C, --chdir=DIR — change working directory to DIR.
  • -S, --split-string=S — process and split S into separate arguments; used to pass multiple arguments on shebang lines. we love a shebang glow-up. 🎀
  • --block-signal[=SIG] — block delivery of SIG signal(s) to COMMAND.
  • --default-signal[=SIG] — reset handling of SIG signal(s) to the default.
  • --ignore-signal[=SIG] — set handling of SIG signal(s) to do nothing. main character refuses to react. 💀
  • --list-signal-handling — list non default signal handling to standard error.
  • -v, --debug — print verbose information for each processing step. it's giving "tell me everything, I'm nosy". 👀
  • --help — display this help and exit.
  • --version — output version information and exit.

A mere - implies -i. If no COMMAND, print the resulting environment.

SIG may be a signal name like 'PIPE', or a signal number like '13'. Without SIG, all known signals are included. Multiple signals can be comma-separated. An empty SIG argument is a no-op. (yes, literally nothing happens. it's a vibe. it's fine.) 🫶

🚦 Exit status: 🚦

  • 125 — if the env command itself fails 💀
  • 126 — if COMMAND is found but cannot be invoked 😭
  • 127 — if COMMAND cannot be found 🔍
  • - — the exit status of COMMAND otherwise

🐚 SCRIPT OPTION HANDLING 🐚

The -S option allows specifying multiple arguments in a script. Running a script named 1.pl containing the following first line:

#!/usr/bin/env -S perl -w -T
...

Will execute perl -w -T 1.pl

Without the '-S' parameter the script will likely fail with:

/usr/bin/env: 'perl -w -T': No such file or directory

like, it's not even reading it right, it's just out here looking for a file named perl -w -T. embarrassing. 🫠

See the full documentation for more details.

📝 NOTES 📝

POSIX's exec(3p) pages says:

"many existing applications wrongly assume that they start with certain signals set to the default action and/or unblocked.... Therefore, it is best not to block or ignore signals across execs without explicit reason to do so, and especially not to block signals across execs of arbitrary (not closely cooperating) programs."

^^ read that twice bestie, that's a real one. 😭

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Written by Richard Mlynarik, David MacKenzie, and Assaf Gordon. icons, all three. 💜

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org GNU coreutils home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/ General help using GNU software: https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/ Report any translation bugs to https://translationproject.org/team/

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

sigaction(2), sigprocmask(2), signal(7)

Full documentation https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/env or available locally via: info '(coreutils) env invocation'

Packaged by Ubuntu (9.10-1ubuntu2) Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this was GNU coreutils 9.10, from August 2026, and it's the ENV(1) page. periodt. 🎀✨🦋

📦 where this page comes from