Re: dots in variable names on OS X

["Mark E. Perkins" <perkinsm%bway.net@localhost>]

On 2006/08/27 07:22, davide zanon wrote:
> Hi! sorry for bothering this list for the second time, but my messages
> *never* get through... and I really can't find any info on the net.
> I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.7, but I know this problem
> exists on .4.2 too. Whichever shell I use, bash or tcsh (my
> favourite) I cannot set any environment variable which contains
> a dot in its name (eg PKG_OPTIONS.<package>), so I don't
> have any control on pkgsrc build options. I only get:
> 
> tcsh: setenv: Syntax Error.
> 
> This is really annoying :)
> Can anyone help me about this? Thanks a lot!
> 
> Davide

Those are (b)make variables, not shell variables. Shell variable names must be
constructed from letters, digits, underscores, and begin with a letter or
underscore. This is spelled out in the man pages for bash and tcsh, although
not particularly easy to find (search for 'underscore' and read the
surrounding bits of text).

HTH,
Mark