The environment variable is a special Python variable defined by Chameleon. As its name suggests, it enables you to obtain information about the environment in which the Python script is running.

The environment variable can be used in Scripted Transformation, and can also be used in segment and table scripts. Functions defined for this variable enable you to perform data manipulation and transformation. Other functions give you access to Chameleon's Python Database Object, which allows you to issue database calls directly from your Python code.

The following sections list the functions that have been defined for the environment variable, and describe the tasks that you can perform using these functions.

	If you are separating your Python code into modules and want to access the environment variable, you must pass it a parameter to your function. Otherwise, the environment variable cannot be referenced in an external file. For example, you may have a file called MyModule.py containing the following code: def MyFunction(env): current_segment = env.input_segment_iterator() # just return the first segment return current_segment.output() Then, in the transformation script of your message, you could have the following: import MyModule value = MyModule.MyFunction(environment) You can use this same technique to pass an iterator object to a function. In fact, you can pass any Python variable as a parameter to a function.