ENV(1) User Commands ENV(1)

env - run a program in a modified environment

env [OPTION]... [-] [NAME=VALUE]... [COMMAND [ARG]...]

Set each NAME to VALUE in the environment and run COMMAND.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

pass ARG as the zeroth argument of COMMAND
start with an empty environment
-0, --null
end each output line with NUL, not newline
remove variable from the environment
change working directory to DIR
process and split S into separate arguments; used to pass multiple arguments on shebang lines
block delivery of SIG signal(s) to COMMAND
reset handling of SIG signal(s) to the default
set handling of SIG signal(s) to do nothing
list non default signal handling to standard error
print verbose information for each processing step
display this help and exit
output version information and exit

A mere - implies -i. If no COMMAND, print the resulting environment.

SIG may be a signal name like 'PIPE', or a signal number like '13'. Without SIG, all known signals are included. Multiple signals can be comma-separated. An empty SIG argument is a no-op.

125
if the env command itself fails
126
if COMMAND is found but cannot be invoked
127
if COMMAND cannot be found
-
the exit status of COMMAND otherwise

The -S option allows specifying multiple arguments in a script. Running a script named 1.pl containing the following first line:

#!/usr/bin/env -S perl -w -T
...

Will execute perl -w -T 1.pl

Without the '-S' parameter the script will likely fail with:

/usr/bin/env: 'perl -w -T': No such file or directory

See the full documentation for more details.

POSIX's exec(3p) pages says:

"many existing applications wrongly assume that they start with certain signals set to the default action and/or unblocked.... Therefore, it is best not to block or ignore signals across execs without explicit reason to do so, and especially not to block signals across execs of arbitrary (not closely cooperating) programs."

Written by Richard Mlynarik, David MacKenzie, and Assaf Gordon.

Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org
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Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

sigaction(2), sigprocmask(2), signal(7)

Full documentation https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/env
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) env invocation'

September 2025 GNU coreutils 9.8