EMBOSS environment variables are set with an 'env' or a 'set' declaration. 'env' and 'set' are interchangeable. The most important environment variable is the location of the .acd files that describe each program.
set emboss_acdroot /site/prog/emboss/share/EMBOSS/acdEnvironment variables are useful for simplifying maintenance of your .embossrc. For example you may want to specify the location of your databases as an environment variable. Then if you move the databases you only have to update one line in the configuration file.
set emboss_database_dir /data/databases/flatfilesThis would then be referred to later in .embossrcas
$emboss_database_dir/emblfor the directory /data/databases/flatfiles/embl