env-var-import

Writing my last post on setting environment variables in GUI Emacs got me thinking about a more general solution to that problem. Rather than requiring everyone to define a function like set-exec-path-from-shell-PATH, it would be nice if there were a package that would handle importing everything for you given a list of environment variables.

To that end I wrote env-var-import. It’s available in Marmalade for easy installation: package-install env-var-import.

Once you’ve installed it, add (require 'env-var-import) to your Emacs configuration and you’re ready to do some importing!

You have two options for using it:

1. (env-var-import): In this mode, it will only import the environment variable defined by env-var-import-exec-path-var and set exec-path to the value of that variable. env-var-import-exec-path-var defaults to to PATH but can be customized.
2. (env-var-import '("VAR1" "VAR2")): In this mode it will still import the value of the environment variable defined in env-var-import-exec-path-var and set exec-path to that value. However, it will also import the values of VAR1 and VAR2.