in reply to EXPORT variables

Depends exactly what you want to do.

You're out of luck if you're trying to change PATH for use once your script has exited. If your script changes PATH, it will revert to its former value once your script terminates. This is how shells work in *NIX, and nothing to do with Perl.

If you want to change PATH for subsequent system calls then just change $ENV{PATH}.

Unless I state otherwise, all my code runs with strict and warnings

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom