Although environment variables apply to all modern systems (Linux, BSD, Mac, or Windows), this series of articles is focused on environment variables in the Bash shell on Linux.
In Python, bash environment variables are implemented and accessed through the os.environ package:
from os import environ
As sometimes you might need to see a complete list of all bash environment variables that are set on your system, you have to call it:
print (environ)Because the os.environ is a dictionary-like object, when we print it, we get all the environment variables name and values, in a dictionary-like structure:
{'LC_NUMERIC': 'fr_FR.UTF-8', 'QT4_IM_MODULE': 'xim', 'GJS_DEBUG_OUTPUT': 'stderr', 'XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP': 'ubuntu:GNOME', 'LC_PAPER': 'fr_FR.UTF-8', 'QT_IM_MODULE': 'ibus', 'XDG_CONFIG_DIRS': '/etc/xdg/xdg-ubuntu:/etc/xdg', 'PATH': '/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/db/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/default-java/bin:/root/Android/Sdk/tools:/root/Android/Sdk/platform-tools', 'XDG_VTNR': '7', 'DISPLAY': ':0', 'SSH_AGENT_PID': '3808', 'LANG': 'en_US.UTF-8', 'TERM': 'xterm', 'SHELL': '/bin/bash', 'XDG_SESSION_PATH': '/org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Session0', 'LANGUAGE': 'en_US', 'GPG_AGENT_INFO': '/run/user/1000/gnupg/S.gpg-agent:0:1', 'LC_MEASUREMENT': 'fr_FR.UTF-8', 'MANDATORY_PATH': '/usr/share/gconf/ubuntu.mandatory.path', 'QT_ACCESSIBILITY': '1', 'GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID': 'this-is-deprecated', 'CLUTTER_IM_MODULE': 'xim', 'TEXTDOMAIN': 'im-config', 'XMODIFIERS': '@im=ibus', 'GIO_LAUNCHED_DESKTOP_FILE_PID': '1963', 'LIBVIRT_DEFAULT_URI': 'qemu:///system', 'JAVA_HOME': '/usr/lib/jvm/default-java/bin', 'XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP': 'ubuntu', 'SHLVL': '1', 'GIO_LAUNCHED_DESKTOP_FILE': '/usr/share/applications/geany.desktop', 'XDG_RUNTIME_DIR': '/run/user/1000', 'GTK_IM_MODULE': 'ibus', 'LC_ADDRESS': 'fr_FR.UTF-8', 'SSH_AUTH_SOCK': '/run/user/1000/keyring/ssh', 'J2SDKDIR': '/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle', 'S_COLORS': 'auto', 'VTE_VERSION': '5202', 'GDMSESSION': 'ubuntu', 'IM_CONFIG_PHASE': '2', 'TEXTDOMAINDIR': '/usr/share/locale/', 'GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE': 'ubuntu', 'DESKTOP_SESSION': 'ubuntu', 'XDG_DATA_DIRS': '/usr/share/ubuntu:/usr/local/share:/usr/share:/var/lib/snapd/desktop', 'XDG_SEAT_PATH': '/org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Seat0', 'ANDROID_HOME': '/root/Android/Sdk', 'LESSOPEN': '| /usr/bin/lesspipe %s', 'XDG_SESSION_ID': 'c2', 'DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS': 'unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus', '_': '/usr/bin/python', 'GTK_MODULES': 'gail:atk-bridge', 'LC_IDENTIFICATION': 'fr_FR.UTF-8', 'DERBY_HOME': '/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/db', 'J2REDIR': '/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre', 'LESSCLOSE': '/usr/bin/lesspipe %s %s', 'DEFAULTS_PATH': '/usr/share/gconf/ubuntu.default.path', 'XDG_SESSION_TYPE': 'x11', 'GDM_LANG': 'en_US', 'LC_TELEPHONE': 'fr_FR.UTF-8', 'LC_MONETARY': 'fr_FR.UTF-8', 'COLORTERM': 'truecolor', 'LC_NAME': 'fr_FR.UTF-8', 'XDG_MENU_PREFIX': 'gnome-', 'LC_TIME': 'fr_FR.UTF-8', 'LS_COLORS': 'rs=0:di=01;34:ln=01;36:mh=00:pi=40;33:so=01;35:do=01;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=40;31;01:mi=00:su=37;41:sg=30;43:ca=30;41:tw=30;42:ow=34;42:st=37;44:ex=01;32:*.tar=01;31:*.tgz=01;31:*.arc=01;31:*.arj=01;31:*.taz=01;31:*.lha=01;31:*.lz4=01;31:*.lzh=01;31:*.lzma=01;31:*.tlz=01;31:*.txz=01;31:*.tzo=01;31:*.t7z=01;31:*.zip=01;31:*.z=01;31:*.Z=01;31:*.dz=01;31:*.gz=01;31:*.lrz=01;31:*.lz=01;31:*.lzo=01;31:*.xz=01;31:*.zst=01;31:*.tzst=01;31:*.bz2=01;31:*.bz=01;31:*.tbz=01;31:*.tbz2=01;31:*.tz=01;31:*.deb=01;31:*.rpm=01;31:*.jar=01;31:*.war=01;31:*.ear=01;31:*.sar=01;31:*.rar=01;31:*.alz=01;31:*.ace=01;31:*.zoo=01;31:*.cpio=01;31:*.7z=01;31:*.rz=01;31:*.cab=01;31:*.wim=01;31:*.swm=01;31:*.dwm=01;31:*.esd=01;31:*.jpg=01;35:*.jpeg=01;35:*.mjpg=01;35:*.mjpeg=01;35:*.gif=01;35:*.bmp=01;35:*.pbm=01;35:*.pgm=01;35:*.ppm=01;35:*.tga=01;35:*.xbm=01;35:*.xpm=01;35:*.tif=01;35:*.tiff=01;35:*.png=01;35:*.svg=01;35:*.svgz=01;35:*.mng=01;35:*.pcx=01;35:*.mov=01;35:*.mpg=01;35:*.mpeg=01;35:*.m2v=01;35:*.mkv=01;35:*.webm=01;35:*.ogm=01;35:*.mp4=01;35:*.m4v=01;35:*.mp4v=01;35:*.vob=01;35:*.qt=01;35:*.nuv=01;35:*.wmv=01;35:*.asf=01;35:*.rm=01;35:*.rmvb=01;35:*.flc=01;35:*.avi=01;35:*.fli=01;35:*.flv=01;35:*.gl=01;35:*.dl=01;35:*.xcf=01;35:*.xwd=01;35:*.yuv=01;35:*.cgm=01;35:*.emf=01;35:*.ogv=01;35:*.ogx=01;35:*.aac=00;36:*.au=00;36:*.flac=00;36:*.m4a=00;36:*.mid=00;36:*.midi=00;36:*.mka=00;36:*.mp3=00;36:*.mpc=00;36:*.ogg=00;36:*.ra=00;36:*.wav=00;36:*.oga=00;36:*.opus=00;36:*.spx=00;36:*.xspf=00;36:', 'GJS_DEBUG_TOPICS': 'JS ERROR;JS LOG', 'XDG_SEAT': 'seat0'}
You can use a for loop in order to have your bash environment variables printed in a better readable way:
for key, value in environ.items(): print ("{}={}".format(key, value))
Below you can see a sample output:
LC_NUMERIC=fr_FR.UTF-8 QT4_IM_MODULE=xim GJS_DEBUG_OUTPUT=stderr XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=ubuntu:GNOME PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/db/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/default-java/bin:/root/Android/Sdk/tools:/root/Android/Sdk/platform-tools XDG_VTNR=7 DISPLAY=:0 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 TERM=xterm SHELL=/bin/bash LANGUAGE=en_US XDG_SEAT=seat0
Or, you can use the pprint module:
import os import pprint pprint.pprint(list(os.environ.items()))