Environment Variables

Various pages in this documentation refer to setting Zephyr-specific environment variables. This page describes how.

Setting Variables

Option 1: Just Once

To set the environment variable MY_VARIABLE to foo for the lifetime of your current terminal window:

export MY_VARIABLE=foo

set MY_VARIABLE=foo

Warning

This is best for experimentation. If you close your terminal window, use another terminal window or tab, restart your computer, etc., this setting will be lost forever.

Using options 2 or 3 is recommended if you want to keep using the setting.

Option 2: In all Terminals

Add the export MY_VARIABLE=foo line to your shell’s startup script in your home directory. For Bash, this is usually ~/.bashrc on Linux or ~/.bash_profile on macOS. Changes in these startup scripts don’t affect shell instances already started; try opening a new terminal window to get the new settings.

You can use the setx program in cmd.exe or the third-party RapidEE program.

To use setx, type this command, then close the terminal window. Any new cmd.exe windows will have MY_VARIABLE set to foo.

setx MY_VARIABLE foo

To install RapidEE, a freeware graphical environment variable editor, using Chocolatey in an Administrator command prompt:

choco install rapidee

You can then run rapidee from your terminal to launch the program and set environment variables. Make sure to use the “User” environment variables area – otherwise, you have to run RapidEE as administrator. Also make sure to save your changes by clicking the Save button at top left before exiting. Settings you make in RapidEE will be available whenever you open a new terminal window.

Option 3: Using `zephyrrc` files

Choose this option if you don’t want to make the variable’s setting available to all of your terminals, but still want to save the value for loading into your environment when you are using Zephyr.

Create a file named ~/.zephyrrc if it doesn’t exist, then add this line to it:

export MY_VARIABLE=foo

To get this value back into your current terminal environment, you must run source zephyr-env.sh from the main zephyr repository. Among other things, this script sources ~/.zephyrrc.

The value will be lost if you close the window, etc.; run source zephyr-env.sh again to get it back.

Add the line set MY_VARIABLE=foo to the file %userprofile%\zephyrrc.cmd using a text editor such as Notepad to save the value.

To get this value back into your current terminal environment, you must run zephyr-env.cmd in a cmd.exe window after changing directory to the main zephyr repository. Among other things, this script runs %userprofile%\zephyrrc.cmd.

The value will be lost if you close the window, etc.; run zephyr-env.cmd again to get it back.

These scripts:

set ZEPHYR_BASE to the location of the zephyr repository
adds some Zephyr-specific locations (such as zephyr’s scripts directory) to your PATH environment variable
loads any settings from the zephyrrc files described above in Option 3: Using zephyrrc files.

You can thus use them any time you need any of these settings.

Zephyr Environment Scripts

You can use the zephyr repository scripts zephyr-env.sh (for macOS and Linux) and zephyr-env.cmd (for Windows) to load Zephyr-specific settings into your current terminal’s environment. To do so, run this command from the zephyr repository:

source zephyr-env.sh

zephyr-env.cmd

These scripts:

set ZEPHYR_BASE to the location of the zephyr repository
adds some Zephyr-specific locations (such as zephyr’s scripts directory) to your PATH environment variable
loads any settings from the zephyrrc files described above in Option 3: Using zephyrrc files.

You can thus use them any time you need any of these settings.

Important Environment Variables

Some Important Build System Variables can also be set in the environment. Here is a description of some of these important environment variables. This is not a comprehensive list.

BOARD: See Important Build System Variables.

CONF_FILE: See Important Build System Variables.

SHIELD: See Shields.

ZEPHYR_BASE: See Important Build System Variables.

EXTRA_ZEPHYR_MODULES: See Important Build System Variables.

ZEPHYR_MODULES: See Important Build System Variables.

ZEPHYR_BOARD_ALIASES: See Board Aliases

The following additional environment variables are significant when configuring the toolchain used to build Zephyr applications.

ZEPHYR_SDK_INSTALL_DIR: Path where Zephyr SDK is installed.

ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT: The name of the toolchain to use.

{TOOLCHAIN}_TOOLCHAIN_PATH: Path to the toolchain specified by ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT. For example, if ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT=llvm, use LLVM_TOOLCHAIN_PATH. (Note the capitalization when forming the environment variable name.)

You might need to update some of these variables when you update the Zephyr SDK toolchain.

Emulators and boards may also depend on additional programs. The build system will try to locate those programs automatically, but may rely on additional CMake or environment variables to do so. Please consult your emulator’s or board’s documentation for more information. The following environment variables may be useful in such situations:

PATH: PATH is an environment variable used on Unix-like or Microsoft Windows operating systems to specify a set of directories where executable programs are located.