Using csh & tcsh

Using Variables

Variables control shell behavior, including the prompt display, where to look for commands, and whether to maintain a history list. The shell understands two kinds of variables: shell variables and environment variables. In general, shell variables are used internally by the shell and affect its own operation, whereas environment variables are accessible to programs started from the shell. Appendix B, csh and tcsh Quick Reference, lists several useful variables of each type.

Variables can be set directly from the command line, but you'll usually set them in your startup files, either to override default values that the shell supplies, or to define variables that the shell leaves undefined.

Shell Variables

Use the set command to define shell variables. Some variables need no explicit value; they have an effect merely by existing:

set notify                       Turn on immediate notification of job completion
set ignoreeof                    Disable logging out via CTRL-D

Other variables require a value:

set history = 20                 Tell shell to remember the last 20 commands
set prompt = "% "                Define command line prompt
set fignore = (.o .bak)          Specify suffixes to ignore during filename completion
set term = vt100                 Specify terminal type

Values that contain spaces or other special characters should be put in quotes, as in the set prompt command above. Values consisting of multiple strings must be surrounded with parentheses, as in the set fignore command.

You don't need to have spaces around the = separating the variable name ...