Environment Variables

Updated December 2010

Several environment variables are created and/or used by A-Shell and ATE, and they are all described in the following sections. Note that:

• In nearly every command context where you can specify a filespec, you can embed an environment variable reference by surrounding the environment variable name by %, e.g. "%miame%\doc\ashelp.mdf".

• A-Shell treats environment variable names as case insensitive (i.e. %MIAME% and %miame% are equivalent). This is consistent with Windows, which treats environment variables as case insensitive, but it might be confusing in the UNIX environment, where environment variable names are case sensitive (and traditionally upper case.)

• ATE environment variables (e.g. ATE, ATECACHE) are visible only to the ATE client process and any of its children, e.g. APEX, client-side SBX calls, AUXLOC: print file processing, AG_xxx functions, etc. The server can query these variables remotely using the AG_GETENV command.

Variable	Platform	Source	Description
APEX	Win	M	Defines the location where the APEX work files and archived print files (.apf) are kept. If not defined the default is <My Documents>\APEX. If that is not found, it uses %TEMP%\APEX. The directory will be created as needed, provided that the parent directory exists.
ASHCLIENTIP			Optional definition of the client's IP address.
ASHFTPDEBUG	Win	M	Activates low level FTP debugging
ASHTMP	UNIX	M	Directory to use for creation of temporary files used during spool processing.
ASQLTRACE	All	M	Set to 1 to activate detailed tracing of SQL.SBR operations.
ASWCACHE	Win P2P	M	Defines local directory for automatic image caching.
ATE	ATE	ATE	Same as %MIAME% but for ATE only
ATECACHE	ATE	ATE, CP	Temporary cache (cleared on exit)
ATEPERMCACHE	ATE	ATE, CP	Permanent cache (not cleared on exit)
ATEEXE	ATE	ATE	ATE or A-Shell/Windows executable filespec (Pseudo-environment variable)
ATELICMODE	ATE Svr	AS	Returns a value indicating ATE license method.
ATELOCALDIR	ATE	ATE, CP	Default Local Directory from the connection properties dialog.
ATEPROFILE	ATE	ATE, CP	ATE defines this variable to match the name of the current connection profile.
ATEVER	ATE	ATE	ATE or A-Shell/Windows version (pseudo-environment variable)
CURRENTDIRECTORY	All	A	Current directory (e.g. c:\vm\miame\dsk0\001004)
FORCEATE	ATE Svr	M	Use ATE protocol for some subroutine communications.
FTP2TIMEOUT	All	M	Overrides default timeout for FPT2 of 60 seconds.
HOME	UNIX	U, M	Standard UNIX variable defining the user's home directory.
MIAME	All	A	A-Shell base directory—i.e., the location of miame.ini.
MIAMEFILE	All	A	Complete filespec of miame.ini; is created automatically by A-Shell once it locates miame.ini.
PERMCACHE	ATE	ATE, CP	Alias for ATEPERMCACHE
REMOTEHOST	UNIX	U, M	Same as ASHCLIENTIP, but somewhat extended.
SYSTEMDIRECTORY	Win	A	Windows system directory (e.g. c:\Windows\System32)
TERM	UNIX	U, M	Standard UNIX variable defining terminal type
WINDOWSDIRECTORY	Win	A	Windows directory (e.g. c:\Windows)
XTREERAW	ATE Svr	M	Disable XTREE data transfer optimization.

Meaning of codes in "Source" column above:

Code	Meaning	Description
M	Manual	Defined optionally and manually by user
ATE	ATE client	Defined automatically by ATE client
CP	ATE connection profile	Definition is based on parameter in connection profile
AS	A-Shell server	Defined automatically on server upon connection from ATE client
A	A-Shell	Defined automatically in all A-Shell environments
U	UNIX	Typically defined automatically by UNIX shell