How Can I Make Environment Variable Changes Persistent Across Processes in Go?

Environment Variable Persistence Across Processes

Problem Description

An attempt to set an environment variable using the "os" package in a Go program persists within the program, but not in the terminal session.

Analysis

When a new process is created in a system, it inherits a copy of its parent process's environment variables. However, changes made to these variables within the child process do not propagate back to the parent process.

Solution

To ensure the environment variable persists beyond the current program execution, the program can launch a new shell (or terminal session) with the modified environment variables. This can be achieved by using the os.StartProcess function with appropriate command line arguments.

Example Code

The following code snippet demonstrates how to set an environment variable using the "os" package and launch a new shell with the modified environment:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "os"
    "os/exec"
)

func main() {
    // Set the environment variable
    _ = os.Setenv("FOO", "BAR")

    // Build the command to launch a new shell
    cmd := exec.Command("sh", "-c", "env")
    cmd.Env = os.Environ()

    // Launch the shell with the modified environment
    err := cmd.Run()
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Failed to launch shell:", err)
        return
    }

    // Print the environment variable value within the new shell
    stdout, err := cmd.Output()
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Failed to get shell output:", err)
        return
    }

    fmt.Println(string(stdout))
}

Running the above program will create a new shell session with the updated environment variable and print its value.

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