Use is a tool that allows the casual user to modify some of their current shell's environment variables in accordance to defined products. It currently modifies PATH, MANPATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, XFILESEARCHPATH, and any other variable that is defined in the use.table file. Some examples include:

• use -u sudo (Configure PATH and MANPATH so that they reference the location of sudo and its manual page.)
• use -u qt3_3_6 -q (Configure PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH so that they reference Qt executables and libraries. QTDIR and QMAKESPEC may also be set depending upon your use.table. The -q option specifies that use should run in silent mode.)
• use -d sudo (Configure PATH and MANPATH so that they no longer reference the location of sudo and its manual page.)

March 13th, 2009.

• Version remains at 1.10.
• Modified the make files.

February 29th, 2008.

• Version 1.10 is now available.
• Resolved several compilation issues.

November 2nd, 2007.

• Modified the manual page.

March 6th, 2007.

• Minor flaw fixed with the new 1.09 addition. Also updated the manual page.

February 28th, 2007.

• Version 1.09 is available. Warn the user if a product references a nonexistent path.

November 17th, 2006.

• Version 1.08 is available. A new option (-p) has been introduced. Please read the man page for more information.

October 24th, 2006.

• Version 1.07 is available. A minor fix.

September 22nd, 2006.

• Version 1.06 is available. This version allows variables to contain multiple paths, for example, ddd.PATH:/usr/local/bin:/opt/sfw/bin.

September 17th, 2006.

• Spelling corrections.

August 13th, 2006.

• Detached products should be processed first.

August 2nd, 2006.

• Bug fix. The environment variable XFILESEARCHPATH was not being set properly. Updated to version 1.05.

July 28th, 2006.

• Bug fix. Use set crucial paths (MANPATH, PATH, etc.) even if they were not specified in the use.table file. Updated to version 1.04.

July 23rd, 2006.

• Major flaw fixed. A NULL envvar value caused allocenv() to misbehave. Updated to version 1.03.

July 21st, 2006.

• Updated use.tcsh. Version remains at 1.02.

July 19th, 2006.

• Version 1.02 is available. Resolved an issue with the quiet option.

July 18th, 2006.

• Version 1.01 is available. This release includes some fixes to the shell scripts as well as the binary. A new PERL installation script has also been added. Please read the INSTALL file for complete information.

July 15th, 2006.

• Initial release.

Use requires the following major packages:

• A C compiler.

Use is supported on CentOS 4.3, FreeBSD 5.5, FreeBSD 6.2, FreeBSD 6.3, OS X 10.4.10, and Solaris 10.

• TAR

Please contact the development team if you have any questions regarding this project. You may also submit a trouble ticket if you so desire.

Credit goes to Michael Gifford for original concept.

This project is hosted by the fine folks at Sourceforge.