A GNU Emacs library to ensure environment variables inside Emacs look the same as in the user's shell.
Ever find that a command works in your shell, but not in Emacs?
This happens a lot on OS X, where an Emacs instance started from the GUI inherits a default set of environment variables.
This library works solves this problem by copying important environment variables from the user's shell: it works by asking your shell to print out the variables of interest, then copying them into the Emacs environment.
At a minimum, this package assumes that your shell is at least UNIX-y: if
(getenv "SHELL") evaluates to something like ".../cmdproxy.exe", this
package probably isn't for you.
Further, if you use a non-POSIX-standard shell such as tcsh or fish, your
shell will be asked to execute sh as a subshell in order to print
out the variables in a format which can be reliably parsed. sh must
be a POSIX-compliant shell in this case.
Note that shell variables which have not been exported as environment variables (e.g. using the "export" keyword) may not be visible to `exec-path-from-shell'.
ELPA packages are available on Marmalade and MELPA. Alternatively, download
the latest release or clone the repository, and install
exec-path-from-shell.el with M-x package-install-file.
Add the following to your init.el (after calling package-initialize):
(when (memq window-system '(mac ns))
(exec-path-from-shell-initialize))This sets $MANPATH, $PATH and exec-path from your shell, but only on OS X.
You can copy values of other environment variables by customizing
exec-path-from-shell-variables before invoking
exec-path-from-shell-initialize, or by calling
exec-path-from-shell-copy-env, e.g.:
(exec-path-from-shell-copy-env "PYTHONPATH")This function may also be called interactively.
Note that your shell will inherit Emacssenvironment variables when it is run -- to avoid surprises your config files should therefore set the environment variables to their exact desired final values, i.e. don't do this:
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
but instead do this:
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
C-h f exec-path-from-shell-initializeC-h f exec-path-from-shell-copy-env
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.