How can I set environment variables for a program executed using `nohup`?

Question

(I'm editing an existing Bash script, so I'm probably making a silly mistake here...)

I have a shell script that saves a command with an environment variable as its argument like this:

COMMAND="mvn clean install -P $MAVEN_PROFILE"

It then executes the command with nohup roughly as follows:

nohup $COMMAND > logfile

This works.

Now, I want to set an environment variable that can be accessed in Maven. I've tried several things like the following:

COMMAND="FORMAVEN=valueForMaven mvn clean install -P $MAVEN_PROFILE"

...but then it just terminates with:

nohup: failed to run command `FORMAVEN=valueForMaven': No such file or directory

I feel like there are several unrelated concepts at work here, none of which I understand or even know about. What do I need to be able to do the above?

Solution

Three methods:

• set (and export) the variable before launching mvn

• set the variable on the nohup launch:

  FORMAVEN=valueForMaven nohup $COMMAND > logfile
  

• use env to set the variable

  COMMAND="env FORMAVEN=valueForMaven mvn clean install -P $MAVEN_PROFILE"
  

Comments

[Vincent]

Excellent! I knew it had to be easier than the directions I was thinking of...

[cristianoms]

How come I never realised that it was as simple as export THEN run the command??? Thanks!