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SET - Create or modify environment variables

 
 Purpose:    Display, create, modify, or delete environment variables. 
             
 Format:     SET [/P /R file ...] [name [=][value ]] 
             
             file :  One or more files containing variable definitions. 
             name :  The name of the environment variable to define or 
             modify. 
             value :  The new value for the variable. 
             
             /P(ause)                        /R(ead from file) 
 
 See also:  ESET and UNSET. 
 Usage 
 Every program and command inherits an environment, which is a list of 
 variable names, each of which is followed by an equal sign and some text. 
  Many programs use entries in the environment to modify their own 
 actions. 
 If you simply type the SET command with no options or arguments, it will 
 display all the names and values currently stored in the environment. 
  Typically, you will see an entry called COMSPEC, an entry called PATH, 
 an entry called CMDLINE, and whatever other environment variables you and 
 your programs have established: 

 
         [c:\] set
         COMSPEC=C:\CMD.EXE\$OS2.EXE
         PATH=C:\;C:\OS2;C:\OS2\SYSTEM;C:\UTIL
         CMDLINE=C:\CMD.EXE\4START.CMD
 
 
 To add a variable to the environment, type SET, a space, the variable 
 name, an equal sign, and the text: 

 
         [c:\] set mine=c:\finance\myfiles
 
 
 The variable name is converted to upper case by CMD.EXE.  The text after 
 the equal sign will be left just as you entered it.  If the variable 
 already exists, its value will be replaced with the new text that you 
 entered. 
 Normally you should not put a space on either side of the equal sign.  A 
 space before the equal sign will become part of the name ; a space after 
 the equal sign will become part of the value. 
 If you use SET to create a variable with the same name as one of the 
 CMD.EXE internal variables, you will disable the internal variable.  If 
 you later execute a batch file or alias that depends on that internal 
 variable, it may not operate correctly. 
 To display the contents of a single variable, type SET plus the variable 
 name: 

 
         [c:\] set mine
 
 
 You can edit environment variables with the ESET command.  To remove 
 variables from the environment, use UNSET, or type SET plus a variable 
 name and an equal sign: 

 
         [c:\] set mine=
 
 
 The variable name is limited to a maximum of 80 characters. The name and 
 value together cannot be longer than 1,023 characters. 
 In CMD.EXE the size of the environment is set automatically, and 
 increased as necessary as you add variables. 
 CMD.EXE supports the "pseudo-variables" BeginLIBPath and EndLIBPath 
 introduced in OS/2 Warp.  If you use either of these as a variable name, 
 CMD.EXE will pass the library path information from the SET command to 
 the operating system, but the variables will not appear in the 
 environment.  See your OS/2 documentation for more information about 
 these "variables". 
 Options 
    /P:     (Pause) Wait for a key to be pressed after each screen page 
            before continuing the display.  Your options at the prompt are 
            explained in detail under Page and File Prompts. 
    /R:     (Read) Read environment variables from a file.  This is much 
            faster than loading variables from a batch file with multiple 
            SET commands.  Each entry in the file must fit within the 
            1,023-byte command-line length limit for CMD.EXE.  The file is 
            in the same format as the SET display (i.e., name =value ), so 
            SET /R can accept as input a file generated by redirecting SET 
            output.  For example, the following commands will save the 
            environment variables to a file, and then reload them from 
            that file: 

            
                    set > varlist
                    set /r varlist
            
            
            You can load variables from multiple files by listing the 
            filenames individually after the /R.  You can add comments to 
            a variable file by starting the comment line with a colon [:]. 
            
            If you are creating a SET /R file by hand, and need to create 
            an entry that spans multiple lines in the file, you can do so 
            by terminating each line, except the last, with an escape 
            character.  However, you cannot use this method to exceed the 
            command-line length limit. 
 

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