As with any Unix operating system, Macintosh OS X recognizes the use of environment variables. For a quick refresher, environment variables are traditionally used in shell scripts to retrieve information about the operating environment. Common environment variables are used each time a new Terminal session is launched, including PATH, HOME, and other less common variables. OS X extends this concept with application bundles and Launch Services. Let's begin by examining the traditional use of environment variables by OS X and their associated scope.
展开▼
