[GRASSLIST:1267] Re: Fw: Re: Two more grass5b10 gnats

[Eric G . Miller]

On Thu, Dec 14, 2000 at 02:10:52PM +0700, Justin Hickey wrote:
> Hi Chris
> 
> bob at math.umn.edu wrote:
> > Error: Error: Aborting!
> > Excessive environmental variable length:
> > 'PATH=/a/very/many/paths/all/strung/together/over/9/lines/in/the/popup'
> > child process exited
> > abnormally
> 
> Hmmm, it seems I can't reproduce your error message. I made a Tcl/Tk
> script that set the PATH environment variable to a string of more than
> 8000 characters and it never complained. And a search for the error
> message in the Grass sources indicates the message is not from Grass. My
> "guess" is that the error is caused by your shell. At least I have heard
> of these errors occurring in shells.
> 
> Sorry I can't be of much help. :(

A PATH length restriction is probably a function of the shell/OS.  Some
may place an arbitrary limit of 1024 characters for instance.  The only
solution I can think of is to reduce the number of entries for your
system PATH settings.  Tools like stow can be used to manage software
installed in /usr/local for instance, removing the necessity to have a
bunch of extra PATH values when each package is installed in it's own
directory (it uses a bunch of symlinks to put executables, libes, etc in
common paths like /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/lib, etc.).

-- 
Eric G. Miller <egm2 at jps.net>