In certain situations, the getenv function attempts to perform a logical name translation on the user-specified argument: 1. If the argument to getenv does not match any of the environment strings present in your environment array, getenv attempts to translate your argument as a logical name by searching the logical name tables indicated by the LNM$FILE_ DEV logical, as is done for file processing. getenv first does a case-sensitive lookup. If that fails, it does a case-insensitive lookup. In most instances, logical names are defined in uppercase, but getenv can also find logical names that include lowercase letters. getenv does not perform iterative logical name translation. 2. If the logical name is a search list with multiple equivalence values, the returned value points to the first equivalence value. For example: $ DEFINE A B,C ptr = getenv("A"); A returns a pointer to "B". 3. If no logical name exists, getenv attempts to translate the argument string as a CLI symbol. If it succeeds, it returns the translated symbol text. If it fails, the return value is NULL. getenv does not perform iterative CLI translation. If your CLI is the DEC/Shell, the function does not attempt a logical name translation since Shell environment symbols are implemented as DCL symbols. NOTES o In OpenVMS Version 7.1, a cache of OpenVMS environment variables (that is, logical names and DCL symbols) was added to the getenv function to avoid the library making repeated calls to translate a logical name or to obtain the value of a DCL symbol. By default, the cache is disabled. If your application does not need to track changes in OpenVMS environment variables that can occur during its execution, the cache can be enabled by enabling the DECC$ENABLE_GETENV_CACHE logical before invoking the application. o Do not use the setenv, getenv, and putenv functions to manipulate symbols and logicals. Instead use the OpenVMS library calls lib$set_logical, lib$get_logical, lib$set_symbol, and lib$get_symbol. The *env functions deliberately provide UNIX behavior, and are not a substitute for these OpenVMS runtime library calls. OpenVMS DCL symbols, not logical names, are the closest analog to environment variables on UNIX systems. While getenv is a mechanism to retrieve either a logical name or a symbol, it maintains an internal cache of values for use with setenv and subsequent getenv calls. The setenv function does not write or create DCL symbols or OpenVMS logical names. This is consistent with UNIX behavior. On UNIX systems, setenv does not change or create any symbols that will be visible in the shell after the program exits.