env(1) — Arch manual pages

ENV(1)

User Commands

ENV(1)

NAME

env - run a program in a modified environment

SYNOPSIS

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

DESCRIPTION

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

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

-a, --argv0=ARG: pass ARG as the zeroth argument of COMMAND
-i, --ignore-environment: start with an empty environment
-0, --null: end each output line with NUL, not newline
-u, --unset=NAME: remove variable from the environment
-C, --chdir=DIR: change working directory to DIR
-S, --split-string=S: process and split S into separate arguments; used to pass multiple arguments on shebang lines
--block-signal[=SIG]: block delivery of SIG signal(s) to COMMAND
--default-signal[=SIG]: reset handling of SIG signal(s) to the default
--ignore-signal[=SIG]: set handling of SIG signal(s) to do nothing
--list-signal-handling: list non default signal handling to standard error
-v, --debug: print verbose information for each processing step
--help: display this help and exit
--version: 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.

Exit status:

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

SCRIPT OPTION HANDLING

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.

"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.

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/
General help using GNU software: https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/
Report any translation bugs to https://translationproject.org/team/

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2026 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.