Set up DOMAIN_HOME environment variable in SUSE Linux

Hi all,

I am running Java NetBeans 6.9 jdk 6 on SUSE Linux (a newbie on linux) and I currently need to get the path of the weblogic domain of my Java application.
I have read that I can directly access the environment variable by using this :

System.getenv("DOMAIN_HOME")

The problem is I couldn't find the DOMAIN_HOME environment variable (actually I have no idea on setting up the env. variable in linux). I found instructions on the internet telling me that I could set this up by setting :

Export DOMAIN_HOME = /desired_path_to_domain

Following several instructions found on the internet, I have already tried the following resolutions :

1. I wrote this on my home's .profile
#export DOMAIN_HOME=$DOMAIN_HOME:/path_to_domain
2. I also wrote that on my home's .bashrc and on /etc/bash.bashrc
3. I executed this on the konsole
printenv
... and as expected I saw the list of all the environment variables. At first, I thought it was pointed to .profile but it wasn't. It was displaying an entirely different value from what was defined on .profile when I executed the line
echo #PATH
... so I concluded that my environment variables weren't defined on .profile

The question is, where exactly is that printenv (environment variables) defined and how can I modify it to include my DOMAIN_HOME variable. Guys, I really need this. I came up posting on forums because none of the solutions above or anywhere else could solve my problem. DOMAIN_HOME remains null (even after restarting my linux server)

Thank you very much for any quick and kind response.
Please help. Thanks.