-bash: export: `=': not a valid identifier

Question

Every time I open my terminal I get the error below:

Last login: Sun Aug  4 17:23:05 on ttys000
-bash: export: `=': not a valid identifier
-bash: export: `/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/mysql/bin': not a valid identifier
-bash: export: `=': not a valid identifier
-bash: export: `/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/mysql/bin': not a valid identifier

And here is my export output:

Calvin:~ sunkehappy$ export
declare -x Apple_PubSub_Socket_Render="/tmp/launch-4lEZNa/Render"
declare -x Apple_Ubiquity_Message="/tmp/launch-ukGAv5/Apple_Ubiquity_Message"
declare -x COMMAND_MODE="unix2003"
declare -x HOME="/Users/sunkehappy"
declare -x LANG="zh_CN.UTF-8"
declare -x LOGNAME="sunkehappy"
declare -x OLDPWD
declare -x PATH="/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin"
declare -x PWD="/Users/sunkehappy"
declare -x SECURITYSESSIONID="186a4"
declare -x SHELL="/bin/bash"
declare -x SHLVL="1"
declare -x SSH_AUTH_SOCK="/tmp/launch-YAEryC/Listeners"
declare -x TERM="xterm-256color"
declare -x TERM_PROGRAM="Apple_Terminal"
declare -x TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION="309"
declare -x TERM_SESSION_ID="B134A404-D87F-4BB9-8A08-55F8CE923339"
declare -x TMPDIR="/var/folders/kt/pfw99tps22gg2019vz8k1zcm0000gn/T/"
declare -x USER="sunkehappy"
declare -x __CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING="0x1F5:25:52"

Answer 1

You cannot put spaces around the = sign when you do:

export foo=bar

Remove the spaces you have and you should be good to go.

If you type:

export foo = bar

the shell will interpret that as a request to export three names: foo , = and bar . = isn't a valid variable name, so the command fails. The variable name, equals sign and it's value must not be separated by spaces for them to be processed as a simultaneous assignment and export.

Answer 2

I faced the same error and did some research to only see that there could be different scenarios to this error. Let me share my findings.

Scenario 1: There cannot be spaces beside the = (equals) sign

$ export TEMP_ENV = example-value
-bash: export: `=': not a valid identifier
// this is the answer to the question

$ export TEMP_ENV =example-value
-bash: export: `=example-value': not a valid identifier

$ export TEMP_ENV= example-value
-bash: export: `example-value': not a valid identifier

Scenario 2: Object value assignment should not have spaces besides quotes

$ export TEMP_ENV={ "key" : "json example" } 
-bash: export: `:': not a valid identifier
-bash: export: `json example': not a valid identifier
-bash: export: `}': not a valid identifier

Scenario 3: List value assignment should not have spaces between values

$ export TEMP_ENV=[1,2 ,3 ]
-bash: export: `,3': not a valid identifier
-bash: export: `]': not a valid identifier

I'm sharing these, because I was stuck for a couple of hours trying to figure out a workaround. Hopefully, it will help someone in need.

Answer 3

First of all go to the /home directorty then open invisible shell script with some text editor, ~/.bash_profile (macOS) or ~/.bashrc (linux) go to the bottom, you would see something like this,

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH = /usr/local/lib

change this like that( remove blank point around the = ),

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib

it should be useful.

Answer 4

Try to surround the path with quotes, and remove the spaces

export PYTHONPATH="/home/user/my_project":$PYTHONPATH

And don't forget to preserve previous content suffixing by :$PYTHONPATH (which is the value of the variable)

Execute the following command to check everything is configured correctly:

echo $PYTHONPATH

Answer 5

当我在变量名前放一个美元符号时遇到了这个问题，如下所示：

$VARIABLE_NAME=value

Answer 6

I had the same problem and figured it out from your comments, but thought I would add the reason I caused the error to occur (for other beginners).

I had opened and edited .bash_profile using the open command in Terminal, which opened it in Text Editor. I typed in an addition to .bash_profile and it used improper quote characters. I opened .bash_profile in Atom and fixed up the error. I also associated the file with Atom for future editing.

Answer 7

I recently tried executing a bash script containing a few lines:

export var1=xxx
unset var2

and I was getting unexpected lines

': not a valid identifierS

because the script had been created on Windows and copied to Linux and contained wrong EOL characters. Switching to the correct encoding fixed the issue. So wrong EOL characters could also generate a similar error.

Answer 8

I was using dash '-' instead of underscore '_' in the variable name.

# fails 
$ export MY-NAME="abc"

# success
$ export MY_NAME="abc"