Variable passed through environment not available in script

I’m trying to write an if/elif/else statement where if a variable equals “Full” it will cat a file and if the same variable equals “Quick” it will read a different, smaller file. The variable is being set outside of the script and is being exported by export var1=Quick

I have

#!/bin/sh
echo $var1
export $var1=var1
{
#try cat-ing the file. If it cannot be read, exit with error. 
if [ "$var1" = "Full" ];
then 
echo "Full read chosen"
cat foo
exit 0
elif [ "$var1" = "Quick" ];
then
echo "Quick read chosen"
cat bar
exit 0
else
echo "Please choose quick or full"
exit 1
fi
}

When I try to run the script by calling ./test, it doesn’t seem like the variable is being set

+ '[' '' = Full ']'
+ '[' '' = Quick ']'
+ echo 'Please choose quick or full'
Please choose quick or full
+ exit 1

Is there a reason why, even though the variable is exported outside of the script, the variable isn’t being passed to the script?

Answer

The following absolutely does work:

$ export var1=Quick
$ ./yourscript

…where yourscript is the script in question.

As such, your question needs to be adjusted to contain enough information and details to reproduce the problem.

---

As an aside, your script would be better written thusly:

#!/bin/sh
case $var1 in
  Full)
    echo "Full read chosen" >&2
    cat foo
    ;;
  Quick)
    echo "Quick read chosen" >&2
    cat bar
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Please choose quick or full" >&2
    exit 1
    ;;
esac
exit 0

Both of the following work for me:

$ var1=Quick ./yourscript
Quick read chosen
cat: bar: No such file or directory
$ (export var1=Quick; ./yourscript)
Quick read chosen
cat: bar: No such file or directory