huff's questions

I'm running Ubuntu 11.04. I use the terminal to start a bash session, and I want to add an environment variable:

$r@hajt:~$ env THEVAR=/example

But it's not working. It shows all the variables with THEVAR being the last one, but another call to env does not show THEVAR anymore- env | grep THEVAR returns nothing.

Similarly, scripts with export (export THEVAR=/example) or other variable assignments (THEVAR=/example) don't add the environment variable.

I know I'm doing something wrong, I know it should be something simple, but I just can't find what.

UPDATE: The real meaning of my question was this one:

• Can a shell script set environment variables of the calling shell?

(Anyway I'll choose the most voted answer and leave the edited title -that wasn't what I was asking)

env runs a program in a modified environment, then dismisses all the changes.