setting variable on Bourne-shell startup

[Conor P. Cahill]

In article <Sep.10.22.17.05.1990.924 at pilot.njin.net> dblack at pilot.njin.net (David Alan Black) writes:
>Based on what I've read in TFM, I've tried to use ".profile" to create
>and export an EDITOR variable (namely, vi - my main purpose here is to
>circumvent emacs).

Yes, putting it in .profile is the way to do it.  However, .profile is  
only read at the startup point for a "LOGIN" shell.  It is not read when
you run a sub-shell.

If you want the .profile read in a sub-shell you must explicitly run

	. $HOME/.profile

>Eventually, I would like to put a "sh" in .login so as to bypass the C-shell.
>But I don't want to have to change EDITOR manually every time.

What you should do is get your system administrator to change your login
shell to /bin/sh and thereafter your .profile will be run instead of 
your .login.

-- 
Conor P. Cahill            (703)430-9247        Virtual Technologies, Inc.,
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