use Data::Dumper;

## First show the current environment

 print "What does \%ENV look like now:\n";
 $Data::Dumper::Purity=1;
 print Data::Dumper->Dump([\%ENV], ['*ENV']);


## now we manually add an element to the ENV hash

 $key="JUST_A_TEST";
 $value='just_a_value';
 $key_1='ANOTHER_SILLY_KEY';

 $ENV{'EXAMPLE'}='12345_test';
 $ENV{$key}='yes_this_is_a_value';
 $ENV{'EXAMPLE4'}=$value;
 $ENV{$key_1}=$value;
 
## Show the current environment after setting manually

 print "What does \%ENV look like now:\n";
 $Data::Dumper::Purity=1;
 print Data::Dumper->Dump([\%ENV], ['*ENV']);

## Get the key/value pairs from DATA

open IN, "environment.txt" or die "Cannot open $input. $!";

foreach $pair (<DATA>) {
         ($key,$value)=split(/=/,$pair);
         $ENV{$key}=$value;
}#close foreach

## First show the current environment

 print "What does \%ENV look like now:\n";
 $Data::Dumper::Purity=1;
 print Data::Dumper->Dump([\%ENV], ['*ENV']);

#the following data is read from DATA but could be put into "environme
+nt.txt" and used from there too.
__DATA__
EXAMPLE2=test_test_test_1234567890
EXAMPLE3=a_very_modern_major_sample_of_a_has_value
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my $name = 'BLUBB';

$ENV{$name} = 'foo';
$ENV{'BLAFASEL'} = "bar";
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The issue is that Environment variables are not being set when we do this way;

warn " 
KEY=$variable
VAL=$value

";
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Im new to perl.... I guess my earler posting was not clear...
Heres what I tried
test1.pl....
my $value='abcdef';
$ENV{'PLATFORM'}=$value;
###### I belive this should set the environment variable PLATFORM

#just to confirm I called another perl program from with in this so if the environment is set then it should be reflected in the called program.
my $res=`perl c:/temp/test2.pl`;
print"\n result from test2.pl == $res\n";

test2.pl.....
my $val=$ENV{'PLATFORM'};
print "\n value of envir var platform= $val\n";
####### I belive this should now give abcdef

RESULTS:
#when test1.pl was run
result from test2.pl == value of envir var platform= abcdef

#### Thus I belive that the environment variables are actually set with in the life time of perl program test1.pl... please correct me if iam wrong.

########## Now my question ############
I need to do a similar stuff but the problem is that the environment variables which need to be set are available in a configuration file which needs to be read and then set, I tried to use a code as given in my earlier posting; however the problem was that when ever I use

$ENV{"$variable"}="$value"; # nothing seems to be happening

$ENV{'PLATFORM'}="$value" ; # This seem to work

is it not possible to use variables "$variable" inside $Env{ }, should it only be specified a string 'blah' ?? please advice...

Thanks Robby

There should be absolutely no difference between

$ENV{'PLATFORM'}="abcdef";
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and

$variable="PLATFORM";
$ENV{$variable}="abcdef";
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I'm noticing a lot of ugly style in your code, a lot of unnecessary code, but nothing that should stop it from working. The following works for me.

use strict;
 
if (@ARGV){
    print $ENV{PLATFORM}, $/;
    exit;
}
 
while(<DATA>){
    chomp;
    my ($variable, $value) = split '=';
    $ENV{$variable}=$value;
}
 
system("perl", $0, "test");
 
__DATA__
PLATFORM=abcdef
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In particular, you don't need to use "$variable", just $variable. You don't need to seek to the begining of a file handle you just opened. You don't need to chomp the components if you already chomped the variable they were split from. But none of that should really cause problems. Are you sure that your code is actually being run? That is, you've got the assignment to %ENV inside an if on your open. Do you have an else telling you if the open failed? Could you add code to print out $variable and $value when you're setting them to make sure they really have what you expect?

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

BEGIN {
  $ENV{'ORACLE_HOME'} = "/path/to/oracle";
  $ENV{'ORACLE_SID'}  = "abc";
}

# the rest of your code goes here
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HTH.

# Put this in the beginning of your program
if (@ARGV && $ARGV[0] eq '--environment_set') {shift}
else {@ARGV = map {s/'/'"'"'/g; "'$_'"} @ARGV;
      exec "source '$fname'; exec '$0' --environment_set @ARGV"}
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