export

To temporarily set environmental variables for the current session, you should run

export VARIABLENAME="value"

For example, to set your path as mentioned above, you would type:

export PATH="/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/ucb/bin"  

All shell scripts should include a search path specifica- tion:

    PATH=/usr/ucb:/usr/bin:/bin; export PATH

A PATH specification is recommended -- often times a script will fail for some people because they have a different or incomplete search path.

The Bourne Shell does not export environment variables to children unless explicitly instructed to do so by using the export command.