env

List environment variables

What it does

With no arguments env prints every environment variable as NAME=value: PATH, HOME, USER, LANG and the ones you set with export. The list is long, so it is usually filtered: env | grep PATH.

printenv does the same, and printenv HOME shows a single variable. With arguments, env runs a command with changed variables: env NODE_ENV=test npm test.

Syntax

env
env | grep <text>
env <NAME>=<value> <command>

Examples

• Find the environment variables that contain PATH

  env | grep PATH

  same as: printenv | grep PATH

  • env — all environment variables
  • | grep PATH — filter them

Related commands

• export — Set an environment variable for the programs you run
• echo — Print text or the value of a variable
• which — Find out where a program lives

Practise · All commands