Next: Misc Variables, Up: Environment
Here is an alphabetical list of specific environment variables that have special meanings in Emacs, giving the name of each variable and its meaning. Most of these variables are also used by some other programs. Emacs does not require any of these environment variables to be set, but it uses their values if they are set.
cd
command to search for the directory you specify,
when you specify a relative directory name.
data-directory
.
doc-directory
.
load-path
.
exec-path
.
complete
package
to search for files.
On MS-Windows, if LANG is not already set in the environment when Emacs starts, Emacs sets it based on the system-wide default language, which you can set in the ‘Regional Settings’ Control Panel on some versions of MS-Windows.
The value of the LC_CTYPE category is
matched against entries in locale-language-names
,
locale-charset-language-names
, and
locale-preferred-coding-systems
, to select a default language
environment and coding system. See Language Environments.
exec-path
.
mail-default-reply-to
. See Mail Headers.
version-control
variable (see Backup Names).
[1] Here and below, whenever we say “colon-separated list of directories,” it pertains to Unix and GNU/Linux systems. On MS-DOS and MS-Windows, the directories are separated by semi-colons instead, since DOS/Windows file names might include a colon after a drive letter.