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-related environment variables (e.g. ATECACHE, ATEPERMCACHE) are recognized by any instance of A-Shell that is aware of an ATE configuration (i.e. via the -atecfg cfgname command line parameter). Practically speaking, this means that child processes launched by ATE (such as APEX, or the File>Open Local Session menu function), understand filespecs containing ATE environment variables such as %ATECACHE%. This is particularly useful for the //META,FTP GDI directive, which is often processed by APEX in a child instance of ATE (and therefore previously didn't understand %ATECACHE%). This feature was added in A-Shell 1133 of January 2009.

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