Is it possible to set environment variables in Google's Colaboratory?

Question

I am running some Python scripts in Google's Colaboratory platform. Now, I need to set some environment variables of the system. Like the following shows:

!export PATH=drive/app/tf-models-fork/research;drive/app/tf-models-fork/research/object_detection;drive/app/tf-models-fork/research/slim;$PATH

I tried to add the location to the variable PATH. However, I am getting the following errors:

/bin/sh: 1: drive/app/tf-models-fork/research/object_detection: Permission denied
/bin/sh: 1: drive/app/tf-models-fork/research/slim: Permission denied
/bin/sh: 1: drive/app/tf-models-fork/research: Permission denied

Is there any way to set the environment variables in this platform?

Swagger

The answer below suggesting os.environ is definitely the right approach. But if you're curious, the export line above is failing because you did ; instead of : when appending to the existing path. – Jara

Oh yes, you are right! I will also test this correct version of "export" way. Thanks for correcting me for my mistaken! – Swagger

Answer 1

I normally set the PATH with os.environ, like this:

import os
os.environ['PATH'] += ":/usr/local/go/bin"

Eparchy

Answer 2

For PATH environment variables, such as PYTHONPATH, I use sys.path.insert or sys.path.append.

You have these 2 options because sys.path is a list of strings (paths), thus you can either insert or append more strings.

For example,

If you want to insert a new path at index 0:

import sys
sys.path.insert(0,'/path/to/folder')

If you want to append a new path:

import sys
sys.path.append('/path/to/folder')

Shwa