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

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"

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I had this problem when I put a dollar sign before variable name, like that:

$VARIABLE_NAME=value