Back to writing
archived

Linux Commands: printenv

Use the Linux printenv command to list environment variables or retrieve the value of one named variable.

printenv is used to print out the environment variables. Environment variables are a common form of setting global values across a terminal session. Environment variables can be set by the systems, automation scripts, or by the user.

You can print your all environment variables using just printenv.

Terminal listing all environment variables with printenv

If you want to print the value of a specific variable you can use printenv <variable name>.

Terminal printing one environment variable with printenv

Conclusion

If you are ever stuck and want to know what was the value of the environment variable you can use it. I have found myself using this quite often when debugging issues in production or on my local machine.