Why are those environment variables set in X?

[Pyrates]

Hey there!

When I open an xterm, there are several environment variables set that relate to opencascade (such as CASROOT). Now, if I only log in at a console prompt, I don't have those set. I guess they somehow come from X, or maybe my window manager?

I can't for my life figure out how those variables came to be defined, since they are not set in the bash startup files. What else is there? I did uninstall opencascade and relog into my window manager, and then the variables weren't set, so the package opencascade somehow must manage to automatically do this for me. Can someone shed a light on this for me? I imagine the answer is along the lines like "packages can install files in directory Y, which are then read by process B and passed to the environment when X starts" or so... I tried grepping files for my life, but nothing turned up...

Thanks for any pointers!
_________________
" ... and the Vogon will do things to you that you wish you'd never been born, or, if you're a clearer minded thinker, that the Vogon had never been born."

[Pyrates]

Well, duh, should have had some sleep before asking...

Packages can install files into /etc/env.d to set environment variables, which are probably sourced for login shells. So does opencascade.

My confusion came from the fact that I deinstalled opencascade, but left some xterms open, where these variables still were set, environtments don't just autoupdate. Loging into other shells _after_ deinstallation of course did not set those variables.
_________________
" ... and the Vogon will do things to you that you wish you'd never been born, or, if you're a clearer minded thinker, that the Vogon had never been born."