Quoted from Wikipedia:

By default, when a process is created it inherits a duplicate environment of its parent process, except for explicit changes made by the parent when it creates the child. At API level, these changes must be done between fork and exec. Alternatively, from shells such as bash, you can change environment variables for a particular command invocation by indirectly invoking it via env or using the ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE=VALUE notation.

I understand that "when a process is created it inherits a duplicate environment of its parent process". But I was wondering what the exception -"explicit changes made by the parent when it creates the child" - really means  ? I don't understand that the examples in API and shells are examples of the exception. Thanks!

Quoted from Wikipedia:

By default, when a process is created it inherits a duplicate environment of its parent process, except for explicit changes made by the parent when it creates the child. At API level, these changes must be done between fork and exec. Alternatively, from shells such as bash, you can change environment variables for a particular command invocation by indirectly invoking it via env or using the ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE=VALUE notation.

I understand that "when a process is created it inherits a duplicate environment of its parent process". But I was wondering what the exception "explicit changes made by the parent when it creates the child" really means? I don't understand how the examples in API and shells are examples of the exception.