setenv equivalent on mac?

Question

I want to set an environment variable using setenv:

setenv NODE_ENV localhost  

But setenv gives me an error saying the command is not found. Does anyone know how to perform the MAC OSX equivalent of setenv? Thanks!

Answer 1

you want export

NODE_ENV=localhost
export NODE_ENV

or on 1 line export NODE_ENV=localhost

and this has nothing to do with OSX per se, more to do with bash vs (t)csh as your shell

Answer 2

Best for Mac is:

launchctl setenv NODE_ENV localhost

if you want to make the variable persistent and avoid rebooting.

See:

http://www.dowdandassociates.com/blog/content/howto-set-an-environment-variable-in-mac-os-x-slash-etc-slash-launchd-dot-conf/