Defining a variable with or without export

Question

What is export for?

What is the difference between:

export name=value

and

name=value

Answer 1

Two of the creators of UNIX, Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike, explain this in their book "The UNIX Programming Environment". Google for the title and you'll easily find a pdf version.

They address shell variables in section 3.6, and focus on the use of the export command at the end of that section:

When you want to make the value of a variable accessible in sub-shells, the shell's export command should be used. (You might think about why there is no way to export the value of a variable from a sub-shell to its parent).