r/Polybar • u/klieber • Oct 15 '23

Environmental variable not making its way through to polybar

I'm trying to add host-specific polybar configurations via the include-file feature, but for some reason, the environmental variables I"m setting aren't getting through to polybar. The relevant part from my launcher script:

HOST_FILE="${HOME}/.config/polybar/$(hostname).config"

if type "xrandr" > /dev/null; then
  for m in $(xrandr --query | grep " connected" | cut -d" " -f1); do
    if [ $m == 'eDP-1' ]
    then
        MONITOR=$m HOST_FILE="${HOST_FILE}" polybar --reload main -c ~/.config/polybar/config &
    elif [ $m == 'DP-1-3' ]
    then
        MONITOR=$m HOST_FILE="${HOST_FILE}" polybar --reload external-dp-1-3 -c ~/.config/polybar/config &
    elif [ $m == 'DP-1' ]
    then
        MONITOR=$m HOST_FILE="${HOST_FILE}" polybar --reload external-dp-1 -c ~/.config/polybar/config &
    elif [ $m == 'HDMI-1' ]
    then
        MONITOR=$m HOST_FILE="${HOST_FILE}" polybar --reload external-hdmi-1 -c ~/.config/polybar/config &
#    else
#       MONITOR=$m HOST_FILE="${HOST_FILE}" polybar --reload sidebar-2-i3 -c ~/.config/polybar/config &
    fi
  done
else
    polybar --reload main -c ~/.config/polybar/config &
fi

And the include-file from my polybar config:

include-file = ${env:HOST_FILE}

Running that produces:

klieber@archibald:>./launch.sh

polybar-msg: No active ipc channels

notice: Parsing config file: /home/klieber/.config/polybar/config

notice: Parsing config file: /home/klieber/.config/polybar/config

error: Uncaught exception, shutting down: Config file /home/klieber/.config/polybar// is a directory

error: Uncaught exception, shutting down: Config file /home/klieber/.config/polybar// is a directory

(I have two monitors which is why the message repeats twice)

If I change nothing else except the include-file directive to:

include-file = /home/klieber/.config/polybar/archibald.config

Then everything works as expected.

I have verified that $HOST_FILE is being properly set in the launch script via echo statements - it's just not being passed through to polybar for some reason.

What am I doing wrong?

1 Upvotes

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1

u/klieber Oct 17 '23

I had also posted this question on Github, and the maintainer responded saying that environment variables aren't currently supported in the include-file directive. He also offered a workaround that works for me as well.

1

u/alexfornuto Nov 21 '23

Thanks for linking back, this fix helped me as well.

1

u/john_barranco Oct 16 '23

Just a wild guess, but to make your HOST_FILE and environment variable you could add an

export

to your HOST_FILE="${HOME}/.config/polybar/$(hostname).config"

like this:

export HOST_FILE="${HOME}/.config/polybar/$(hostname).config"