How to import environmental variables form external file using source

Question

Basically I have a list of environmental variables that I need to set from an external file. Here's what i'm trying to do...

file: /usr/local/env

export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=~/.ec2/pk-xxxxx.pem
export EC2_CERT=~/.ec2/cert-xxxxx.pem
export EC2_URL=https://ec2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
export EC2_HOME=/opt/aws/apitools/ec2
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jre

file: /usr/local/test.sh

source /usr/local/env
ec2-describe-instances

When i run /usr/local/test.sh i get /bin/ec2-cmd: No such file or directorybe-instances: line 11: /opt/aws/apitools/ec2

So i check the variables and notice that when:

[root@ip-10-244-17-106 ~]# set | grep EC2
EC2_AMITOOL_HOME=/opt/aws/amitools/ec2
EC2_CERT=$'~/.ec2/cert-xxxxx.pem\r'
EC2_HOME=$'/opt/aws/apitools/ec2\r'
EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=$'~/.ec2/pk-xxxxx.pem\r'

and when i run:

[root@ip-10-244-17-106 ~]# env | grep EC2
EC2_HOME=/opt/aws/apitools/ec2
EC2_URL=https://ec2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=~/.ec2/pk-xxxxx.pem
EC2_CERT=~/.ec2/cert-xxxxx.pem

Why does source wrap $'<variable>\r' around all my values? I think this is why i'm getting the error. Anyone have any help?

because you created your file on a windows based machine? Try running dos2unix /usr/local/env . Good luck. — shellter
– shellter, Commented Mar 9, 2012 at 0:15
Looks like incorrect end-of-line characters. Does your /usr/local/env by any chance comes from Windows? — ayoy
– ayoy, Commented Mar 9, 2012 at 0:17

Daniel Fischer · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-05 16:00:29Z

1

Unix terminates a line with a Line Feed character, frequently described with the C escaping convention as \n. Windows terminates a line with both a Carriage Return and a Line Feed character, or \r\n. So the actual first line in your sourced file is

export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=~/.ec2/pk-xxxxx.pem\r\n

Unix knows to recognize the \n as the end-of-line, but thinks that the \r is just more of the text from that line.

You can strip that with

dos2unix /usr/local/env

Also, some text editors on Windows also offer the option to save with \n line termination.

edited Jul 5, 2012 at 16:00

Daniel Fischer

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answered Mar 9, 2012 at 0:19

Eric J.

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1 Comment

bwight Over a year ago

Thanks, Yes i created the file in windows. I already had the dos2unix command running but the file is actually in a subdirectory and the command wasn't recursively running on subdirectories. THANKS!

ruakh · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-09 00:17:52Z

1

You need to run dos2unix on your /usr/local/env: right now it's using Windows line-endings (carriage-return + line-feed, \r\n) instead of Linux ones (just line-feed, \n).

Also, something seems to be preventing tilde expansion; I'm not sure what the problem with that is — as far as I can see, the Bash Reference Manual doesn't list anything that would turn it off completely — but you can most likely work around it by writing $HOME instead of ~. :-/

answered Mar 9, 2012 at 0:17

ruakh

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