D ADAM Environment Variables

For more complex operation of ADAM tasks, the user may make use of the following environment variables:

HOME

Is expected to specify the user’s home directory.

ADAM_USER

ADAM_USER may be set to define a directory other than $HOME/adam to hold the program parameter files etc. (see Section 5).

ADAM_IFL

Optionally specifies a search path of directories in which the system is to look for Interface Files. See the Running from the Shell section for details.

ADAM_HELP

Specifies a search path of directories in which the parameter system is to look for parameter help files if a full pathname is not specified in the Interface File – it is not usually required.

ADAM_ABBRV

If this environment variable is set, keywords used on the command line may be abbreviated to the minimum unambiguous length. Note that there could always be an undetectable ambiguity between logical or special keywords and unquoted strings or names. To alleviate this problem slightly, special keywords (PROMPT, RESET etc.) must always be given with a minimum of two characters. This environment variable is set by default.

ADAM_NOPROMPT

This will prevent the task from prompting either for parameter values or to resolve an ambiguous keyword. Status PAR__NOUSR will be returned for a parameter prompt, and SUBPAR__CMDSYER if an ambiguous keyword is given on the command line.

ADAM_EXTN

Specifies a comma-separated list of extensions to be removed from the end of filenames after filename completion. By default .sdf will be removed. See the Filename Completion section for details.

ADAM_TASK_TYPE

If set to ‘I’, this will prevent A-tasks and A-task monoliths resetting active parameter values (and NULL states) after each invocation. Most other aspects of parameter system closedown (such as updating associated GLOBAL variables and unsetting dynamic defaults and MIN/MAX values) will still occur. This is of particular use for Graphical User Interfaces and is unlikely to be set directly by users.

ADAM_EXIT

If this environment variable is set when an ADAM task terminates, the calling process will exit with system status set to 1 if the ADAM status was set, or 0 if the ADAM status was SAI__OK.

EMS_PATH

Unix ADAM will now use the EMS subroutines for obtaining the message associated with Starlink status values. EMS_PATH may be used to override the default search path for the message files (see SSN/4 for details).

PATH

In addition to its use by the system to find the required executable file, the environment variable PATH is used by the parameter system to find the pathname of the file being executed if it was invoked by simply typing its name (not its pathname). This is needed to discover the directory in which to look for the Interface File if the ADAM_IFL search is unsuccessful. This process means that the use of links may cause confusion – the name and directory of the link will be used.

HDS_SHELL

The interpretation of names given as values for parameters accessed via PAR or DAT routines will be handled by HDS. The environment variable HDS_SHELL (see SUN/92) will be effective. If it is not set when the application starts, interpretation with SHELL=0 (sh) is selected – thus environment variables and ‘˜’ are usually expanded. Note that parameter system syntax will usually prevent the use of more general shell expressions as names.

ICL Environment Variables

See Appendix E for details of the environment variables used by ICL.