Setting it in the current processes' environment should be enough, since any subprocesses inherit their parent's environment.

Although system() does, in fact open a new shell, that shell should inherit your perl script's environment like any other child process (and pass it on to its children).

Update: reasons why this may not be working:

• What shell are you using? bash, for instance, executes .bashrc everytime it starts a subshell (same as .csh does with .cshrc, .tcsh does with .tcshrc, etc.). Are you inadvertantly overwriting your desired environment variable(s) in some startup script?
• The SYBASE variable (and the like) is special, particularly when you are trying to use DBD::Sybase with DBI. You cannot set $ENV{SYBASE} (even in a BEGIN block) and expect DBD::Sybase/DBI to work. (on closer re-read, I realize this iss not your problem)
• There is probably another one, but I cannot at the moment think of it.

dmm

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