setenv

fnbool setenv(string variable, string value, bool overwrite)

Sets an environment variable. On UNIX, both the variable's name and value can be arbitrary byte strings, except that the variable's name cannot contain '='. On Windows, they should be in UTF-8.

Note that on some systems, when variables are overwritten, the memory used for the previous variables and its value isn't reclaimed.

You should be mindful of the fact that environment variable handling in UNIX is not thread-safe, and your program may crash if one thread calls [glib.global.setenv] while another thread is calling getenv(). (And note that many functions, such as gettext(), call getenv() internally.) This function is only safe to use at the very start of your program, before creating any other threads (or creating objects that create worker threads of their own).

If you need to set up the environment for a child process, you can use [glib.global.getEnviron] to get an environment array, modify that with [glib.global.environSetenv] and [glib.global.environUnsetenv], and then pass that array directly to execvpe(), [glib.global.spawnAsync], or the like.

Parameters

variablethe environment variable to set, must not contain '='.
valuethe value for to set the variable to.
overwritewhether to change the variable if it already exists.

Returns

false if the environment variable couldn't be set.