Zsh: export: not valid in this context

When running [this script](https://gist.github.com/amelio-vazquez-reina/0befbd311e96f8787754) , I run into an error on this line (relevant snippet below): ... _NEW_PATH=$("$_THIS_DIR/conda" ..activate "$@") if (( $? == 0 )); then export PATH=$_NEW_PATH # If the string contains / it's a path if [[ "$@" == */* ]]; then export CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV=$(get_abs_filename "$@") else export CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV="$@" fi # ==== The next line returns an error # ==== with the message: "export: not valid in this context /Users/avazquez/anaconda3" export CONDA_ENV_PATH=$(get_dirname $_THIS_DIR) if (( $("$_THIS_DIR/conda" ..changeps1) )); then CONDA_OLD_PS1="$PS1" PS1="($CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV)$PS1" fi else return $? fi ... Why is that? I found this ticket , but I don't have that syntax error. I found reports of the same problem in GitHub threads (e.g. here ) and mailing lists (e.g. here )