Environment variables in Eclipse

Question

I am able to run a sample hadoop program from the command prompt and am trying to run the same program from Eclipse, so that I can debug it and understand it better.

For the command line program, some environment variables are set in the .bashrc and the same are being read as System.getenv().get("HADOOP_MAPRED_HOME") in the hadoop program. But, when I am running a java program with System.getenv().get("HADOOP_MAPRED_HOME"), from Eclipse I am getting null.

I tried passing -DHADOOP_MAPRED_HOME=test to VM parameters in the runtime configurations from Eclipse, but still getting null in the standalone program. How to make the environment variables visible within Eclipse? When I iterate through System.getenv() in Eclipse, I see lot of variables like DISPLAY, USER, HOME and others. Where are they set? I am using Ubuntu 11.04.

score 135 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 16 '14 at 11:02

135

You can also define an environment variable that is visible only within Eclipse.

Go to Run -> Run Configurations... and Select tab "Environment".

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There you can add several environment variables that will be specific to your application.

edited Dec 16 '14 at 11:02

aspiring_sarge

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answered Oct 10 '12 at 00:46

Max

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Max, this is applicable only for the current running Program. If you are running tests or other programs, each of those has to have the environment variable set again. – bschandramohan Dec 28 '12 at 13:19
You *can* do this, but probably shouldn't. It risks the environment variable's value being later changed in the OS or in Eclipse, such that the two end up contradicting each other. – May 29 '17 at 19:36
This is the best way to do it imho, as it allows you to give each app your are developing on it's own config, instead of having to change your global environment each time. – Stijn de Witt Sep 29 '17 at 18:45
Very helpful. I like this way. – Shui shengbao Dec 21 '17 at 08:37
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But if you want to run unit tests individually, you have to set this for each test individually, which can become annoying. How does one set that for all run configurations globally? – Stewart Aug 30 '18 at 18:31
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But my problem is that environment variables from this tab are not being picked up – demongolem Oct 22 '20 at 11:37
Couldn't find a way to use these variables in external bash script on Ubuntu. The script being called via "Run external tool" button. `JLinkGDBServerCLExe -if swd -speed 4000 -device "1986BE4" -singlerun x-terminal-emulator -e gdb-multiarch -x "$SCRIPT_DIR"` SCRIPT_DIR is picked up on Windows with no problem, being used in external bin file `start JLinkGDBServerCL.exe -if swd -speed 4000 -device "1986BE4" -singlerun start arm-none-eabi-gdb -x "%SCRIPT_DIR%gdbscript.txt%"` – edvard_munch Apr 28 '22 at 13:42

Don Giusuppe · Answer 2 · 2016-07-18T12:20:32.950

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I've created an eclipse plugin for this, because I had the same problem. Feel free to download it and contribute to it.

It's still in early development, but it does its job already for me.

https://github.com/JorisAerts/Eclipse-Environment-Variables

edited Jul 18 '16 at 12:20

answered Jun 03 '16 at 00:34

Don Giusuppe

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This worked extremely well. I was fighting with a bad install of osx and unable to reinstall at this time but this plugin circumvented the problem. – gwnp Jul 18 '17 at 15:50
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This is such a useful plugin, you should do some finishing touch and publish it in the eclipse marketplace. – Dag Sep 06 '17 at 06:47
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Thank you for the plugin! Works on STS 3.9.1 (Eclipse 4.7.1a) – Andrii Karaivanskyi Oct 26 '17 at 16:08
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Super! This really works & removed my long term headache. Thank you! – Karthik Feb 20 '18 at 09:25
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Totally agree with other commenters: publish! – GreenAsJade Jan 19 '19 at 07:57
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I've pusblished it: http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/environment-variables-preference-page – Don Giusuppe Feb 12 '19 at 08:27
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Great. This is exactly what I want. – Jerry Zhang Oct 19 '20 at 09:22
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There is a bug with Eclipse 4.10. I can install the plugin but could not open environment variables tab. Could you please take a look? – Jerry Zhang Oct 19 '20 at 09:41

score 33 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 13 '11 at 02:50

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The .bashrc file is used for setting variables used by interactive login shells. If you want those environment variables available in Eclipse you need to put them in /etc/environment.

answered Aug 13 '11 at 02:50

Perception

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Thanks - it works - just had to reboot the machine - any way to avoid a reboot. – Praveen Sripati Aug 13 '11 at 03:14
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You can try `source /etc/environment`, but it's not garaunteed to replace environment variables in processes that are already running. Reboot is the safest bet. – Perception Aug 13 '11 at 03:23
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Is there a equivalent in Mac Os X? – bschandramohan Dec 28 '12 at 13:22
@ChandraMohan - see [here](http://stackoverflow.com/a/588442/680925) for the best method to set environment variables for Mac OSX apps. – Perception Dec 28 '12 at 16:42
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In linux it's enough to restart the greeter (gdm, lxdm, xdm, kdm, etc). Restart the greeter from outside Xorg, open a console (for example using CTRL+ALT+F2), login and restart the greeter service. Then go back to the Xorg session with (CTRL+ALT+F1), can be another F key on your system just try everyone of them. – Marcs Feb 09 '15 at 21:12

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered May 30 '13 at 17:50

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You can set the Hadoop home directory by sending a -Dhadoop.home.dir to the VM. To send this parameters to all your application that you execute inside eclipse, you can set them in Window->Preferences->Java->Installed JREs-> (select your JRE installation) -> Edit.. -> (set the value in the "Default VM arguments:" textbox). You can replace ${HADOOP_HOME} with the path to your Hadoop installation.

Select the JRE you use for running programs in Eclipse

Sending the value for hadoop.home.dir property as a VM argument

answered May 30 '13 at 17:50

Always Asking

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The previous solution did work for me and shows up in getenv() results. The JRE Default VM arguments does not work. I tried on Mac OS X 10.8 using Eclipse Juno. – Dorrin Sep 24 '13 at 15:40
@Dorrin To access VM arguments, you have to use System.getProperty(). geetenv is for OS level variables. – Paddy Jun 15 '16 at 01:21
I was looking for a "global" solution to setting environment variable at one place for all applications running within Eclipse. This helped. +1 – The Student Soul Sep 18 '17 at 13:41

score 6 · Answer 5 · edited Sep 03 '19 at 11:08

6

You can also start eclipse within a shell.

You export the enronment, before calling eclipse.

Example :

#!/bin/bash
export MY_VAR="ADCA"
export PATH="/home/lala/bin;$PATH"
$ECLIPSE_HOME/eclipse -data $YOUR_WORK_SPACE_PATH

Then you can have multiple instances on eclipse with their own custome environment including workspace.

edited Sep 03 '19 at 11:08

Nicolás Alarcón Rapela

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answered Jun 11 '15 at 10:20

jessarah

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score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

I was trying to achieve this but in the context of a MAVEN build. As part of my pom.xml configuration, I had a reference to an environment variable as part of a path to a local JAR:

<dependency>
  <groupId>the group id</groupId>
  <artifactId>the artifact id</artifactId>
  <version>the version</version>
  <scope>system</scope>
    <systemPath>${env.MY_ENV_VARIABLE}/the_local_jar_archive.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>

To compile my project, I had to define the environment variable as part of the run configuration for the maven build as explained by Max's answer. I was able to launch the maven compilation and the project would compile just fine.

However, as this environment variable involves some dependencies, the default "problems" view of Eclipse (where compilation errors/warnings usually show) would still show errors along the lines of Could not find artifact and systemPath should be an absolute path but is ${env.MY_ENV_VARIABLE}/the_local_jar_archive.jar.

How I fixed it

Go into Window -> Preferences -> General -> Worksapce -> Linked Resources and define a new path variable.

Finally, in my case I just needed to Right click on my pom.xml file, select Maven -> Update Project and the errors disappeared from the "Problems" view.

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 25 '16 at 03:05

For the people who want to override the Environment Variable of OS in Eclipse project, refer to @MAX answer too.

It's useful when you have release project end eclipse project at the same machine.

The release project can use the OS Environment Variable for test usage and eclipse project can override it for development usage.

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Nov 28 '20 at 20:13

0

I was able to set the env. variables by sourcing (source command inside the shell (ksh) scirpt) the file that was settign them. Then I called the .ksh script from the external Tools

answered Nov 28 '20 at 20:13

Tnt Nikol

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Environment variables in Eclipse

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