Re: Modifying the environment variables of a parent process

["Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net>]

Hi,

Gianfranco Costamagna wrote:
> first I guess this isn't the right place, but well, the damage is done :)

Maybe we should move to debian-user@lists.debian.org
if we discuss on. :))


Markhazy wrote:
> > the desired effect
> > user@user:-$ cdiv -1 5 6 0
> >                -0.16667 + j0.8333
> > user@user:-$ echo $AC
> > -0.16667
> > user@user:-$ echo $ACIM
> > 0.8333

Parent environment is out of reach. At least by tradition.

Shell functions can set their caller's variables. 
How about this one decoding the output line of cdiv:

my_cdiv () {
  read AC plus_dummy ACIM <<EOT
    $(cdiv "$@")
EOT
  # Remove the leading "j" from the imaginary output
  ACIM=$(echo "$ACIM" | sed -e 's/^j//')
}

You'd write the function into a script file and at
intialization time execute it inline (thus the leading '.')
in the dialog shell:

  . my_cdiv_initializer.sh


Not having "cdiv", i tested with
  $(echo "$@")
instead, and gave the desired cdiv result as argument

  $ my_cdiv "-0.16667 + j0.8333"
  $ echo $AC
  -0.16667
  $ echo $ACIM
  0.8333

This depends much on the output format of cdiv being
uniform. Abbreviated output like 
  j0.8333
or
  -0.16667
would need more brains inside the shell function.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas