os.Setenv bug?

[salviati]

I needed pass a few environment parameters to SDL (http://
www.libsdl.org/docs/html/sdlenvvars.html), but os.Setenv doesn't seem
to be doing the job. I wrapped stdlib's setenv as a hack and it works,
but I'm wondering whether if this is a bug or not.

[Dave Cheney]

I dont' think os.SetEnv pushes the env variables back into the process
environment space, it just updates the Go hash map that is populated
on first access.

http://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse/src/pkg/os/env_unix.go#56

Dave

[Brad Fitzpatrick]

And that basically works if you only are using exec.Run to start child processes and passing in os.Environ() as the envv parameter.

But yeah, it won't work if you're making calls into C which is then checking getenv.

It's probably worth fixing, with documentation if nothing else.  Want to file an issue?

[salviati]

> It's probably worth fixing, with documentation if nothing else.

Indeed, the documentation is misleading:
"Setenv sets the value of the environment variable named by the key."

> Want to file an issue?

Done: http://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=1569

[brainman]

On Wednesday, March 2, 2011 10:32:14 AM UTC+11, Brad Fitzpatrick wrote:

It's probably worth fixing, with documentation if nothing else...

FYI, windows code does update os environment:

http://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse/src/pkg/os/env_windows.go#48

Alex