exporting an environment variable from a bash script to a tcsh shell

Question

I run bash scripts from tcsh shells. I want to set an environment variable in the tcsh shell from a bash script.

The method of doing this, if your parent shell is bash is to source a file, i.e., if I have a file called dog that contains

#!/bin/bash
myEnv=foo
export $myEnv

then from a bash shell, the command

. dog

will as expected create an envi source dog

then nothing happens. Is there a way to accomplish what I want to do?

thanks!

Answer 1

You want

export myEnv

not

export $myEnv

Answer 2

In addition to what Gunnar already noted, export will make the variable available only to that instance of bash shell and its child processes. In addition tcsh and bash syntax differ when it comes to variables.

I would suggest you set a variable in the syntax familiar to tcsh

eagle:~/sergrep> cat var_file.txt
setenv foo "TEST"
eagle:~/sergrep> source var_file.txt
eagle:~/sergrep> echo $foo
TEST