ENV(1)

NAME
env - run a program in a modified environment

SYNOPSIS
env [OPTION]... [-] [NAME=VALUE]... [COMMAND [ARG]...]

DESCRIPTION

Set each NAME to VALUE in the environment and run COMMAND.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-a, --argv0=ARG
    pass ARG as the zeroth argument of COMMAND

-i, --ignore-environment
    start with an empty environment

-0, --null
    end each output line with NUL, not newline

-u, --unset=NAME
    remove variable from the environment

-C, --chdir=DIR
    change working directory to DIR

-S, --split-string=S
    process and split S into separate arguments; used to pass multiple arguments on shebang lines

--block-signal[=SIG]
    block delivery of SIG signal(s) to COMMAND

--default-signal[=SIG]
    reset handling of SIG signal(s) to the default

--ignore-signal[=SIG]
    set handling of SIG signal(s) to do nothing

--list-signal-handling
    list non default signal handling to standard error

-v, --debug
    print verbose information for each processing step

--help
    display this help and exit

--version
    output version information and exit

A mere - implies -i. If no COMMAND, print the resulting environment.

SIG may be a signal name like 'PIPE', or a signal number like '13'. Without SIG, all known signals are included. Multiple signals can be comma-separated. An empty SIG argument is a no-op.

  Exit status:

125 if the env command itself fails

126 if COMMAND is found but cannot be invoked

127 if COMMAND cannot be found

-   the exit status of COMMAND otherwise

SCRIPT OPTION HANDLING
The -S option allows specifying multiple arguments in a script. Running a script named 1.pl containing the following first line:

    #!/usr/bin/env -S perl -w -T
    ...

Will execute perl -w -T 1.pl

Without the '-S' parameter the script will likely fail with:

    /usr/bin/env: 'perl -w -T': No such file or directory

See the full documentation for more details.

NOTES
POSIX's exec(3p) pages says:
    "many existing applications wrongly assume that they start with certain signals set to the default action and/or unblocked.... Therefore, it is best not to block or ignore signals across execs without explicit reason to do so, and especially not to block signals across execs of arbitrary (not closely cooperating) programs."

AUTHOR
Written by Richard Mlynarik, David MacKenzie, and Assaf Gordon.

REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
sigaction(2), sigprocmask(2), signal(7)

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/env>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) env invocation'