My Windows 7 system path looks something like this:
Path=C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;C:\Windows\system32;....
I am trying to set a new user variable based on whether its defined or not already:
IF NOT DEFINED DEFAULTP (
echo Setting DEFAULTP to backup the system PATH
SETX DEFAULTP=%PATH%
)
When I try to do this, I get an error that looks like this:
\NVIDIA was unexpected at this time.
Can anyone guess why?
Try this:
IF NOT DEFINED DEFAULTP (
echo Setting DEFAULTP to backup the system PATH
SETX DEFAULTP "%PATH%"
)
Edit: Running setx /? gives these examples:
Examples:
SETX MACHINE COMPAQ
SETX MACHINE "COMPAQ COMPUTER" /M
SETX MYPATH "%PATH%"
SETX MYPATH ~PATH~
I got the issue because there are braces in PATH and it got conflicted with the braces of the IF statement.
the solution is just try to remove braces from IF
#rem below will pass
SET PATH_1=C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation;%PATH_1%
if "%1" == "1" set PATH_1=%NEW_PATH%;%PATH_1%
#rem below will fail
SET PATH_1=C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation;%PATH_1%
if "%1" == "1" ( set PATH_1=%NEW_PATH%;%PATH_1% )
echo final PATH_1=%PATH_1%
echo over
My original demo code that has the error:
(for convenience just rename PATH to PATH_1 )
#setlocal
#echo off
set PATH_1=C:\windows
SET NEW_PATH=PATH\TO\SOME_WHRER
SET PATH_1=C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation;%PATH_1%
if "%1" == "1" (
set PATH_1=%NEW_PATH%;%PATH_1%
)
echo final PATH_1=%PATH_1%
exit /b 1
That is happening because you work with a variable containing parentheses inside a code block (the if function in your case). You can indeed circumvent this by adding quotes around your variable (as RonK advises) or by removing the parentheses of the if function (as Michael Hou advises), but the easiest and most secure way is to change %PATH% into !PATH! inside the code block.
IF NOT DEFINED DEFAULTP (
echo Setting DEFAULTP to backup the system PATH
SETX DEFAULTP=!PATH!
)
Related
I'm trying to set up a script that will install python automatically, and I'm stuck on setting up the user path. I have only a vague clue about what I'm doing here so please excuse me if I'm using any terms incorrectly.
I'm trying to set the environment variables using setx path "%PATH%;%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Python\Python310"\ but I've run into several issues.
I finally have this command not failing because of 'multiple default arguments' or something but now when trying to set PATH, I get duplicate entries.
If originally %PATH% gave me '\path1;\path2', and I run setx path "%PATH%;\path3", %PATH% outputs '\path1;\path2;\path1;\path2;\path3',
when I expected to have '\path1;\path2;\path3'
As per what I've been reading from other answers, I think %PATH% gives you the combined SYSTEM and USER paths, but setx path modifies the USER path only. So everytime I run setx path I'm adding the system variables again.
I just want to add my python.exe location to the user path variable in a .bat script without this duplicating issue. Does anyone have a working solution?
#ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL
SET "python=%%USERPROFILE%%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps"
ECHO %path%>u:\pp.txt
FOR /f "tokens=1,2,*" %%u IN ('reg query HKCU\Environment') DO IF "%%u"=="Path" (
FIND /v "%python%" "u:\pp.txt" >NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 (
ECHO CHANGE path
ECHO SETX PATH "%%w;%python%"
)
)
DEL u:\pp.txt
GOTO :EOF
I used a path that I have installed as python. Note that the % need to be doubled.
Write the current path to a tempfile (u:\pp.txt is simply on a RAMDRIVE for me)
Read the environment data from the registry, tokenise and select for the first item in %%u being Path. Its value will be in %%w.
See whether the "python path" is already in the path; if not, errorlevel will be 1 so execute the setx.
I merely echoed the setx as I'm not going to change the registry. If the command echoed appears correct, remove the echo to actually execute the setx.
It may be an idea to also set the path in the current environment, as setx changes the variable's value for future instances, not for the current one.
===== Revision ==== in the light of comments:
#ECHO Off
SETLOCAL
SET "python=%%USERPROFILE%%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps"
ECHO %path%>u:\pp.txt
FOR /f "tokens=1,2,*" %%u IN ('reg query HKCU\Environment') DO IF /i "%%u"=="Path" (
FIND /v "%python%" "u:\pp.txt" >NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 (
SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
SET "xpath=%%w;%python%"
SET "xpath=!xpath:~159!"
IF DEFINED xpath (ECHO PATH too long) ELSE (
ECHO CHANGE path
ECHO SETX %%u "%%w;%python%"
)
ENDLOCAL
)
)
DEL u:\pp*.txt
GOTO :EOF
Fixes:
Comparison in for ...%%u made case-insensitive.
Length of resultant user-path variable checked. I used a value of 159 for testing, 1022 for real-world.
variable name being setx'd will be identical to that retrieved from the registry. (For me, it's Path (W11 22H2) - My editor helpfully changes any batch keyword followed by a space to upper-case)
I tried so many possibilities to achieve this but I keep on getting errors.
I dont know why I can't pass %CD% and %PATH% to FINDSTR.
#echo off
findstr %cd% %path%
echo %errorlevel%
pause
The result is findstr can't take value from %path% because it is not a file so I tried to echo it to file.
#echo off
echo %path% > path.txt
findstr %cd% path.txt
echo %errorlevel%
pause
For now findstr could open path.txt but couldn't get the string to compare. The %cd% didn't appear to work so I tried to put it manually like this:
#echo off
echo %path% > path.txt
findstr c:\foo path.txt
echo %errorlevel%
pause
It works!
So how can I get the current directory value and pass the value to findstr? or more plainly, how do I detect if the current directory exists within %PATH% variable.
for %%a in (echo "%path:;=" "%") do if /i "%cd%"=="%%a" echo "found it"
should do this for most situations but there are exceptions.
path may contain relative paths (. or ..) which will not be detected.
path may contain "some;directory" which will not play nicely
and there is no requirement that the drivename appears in path.
So - use with caution.
Run the following small example script which uses FIND and FINDSTR with conditionals and also an IF/ELSE:
#Echo Off
Echo(%PATH%|Find/I "%CD%;">Nul&&(Echo(Found)||Echo(Not Found
Timeout 2
Echo(%PATH%|FindStr/I "%CD%;">Nul&&(Echo(Found)||Echo(Not Found
Timeout 2
SetLocal EnableDelayedExpansion
If /I "!PATH:%CD%;=!"=="!PATH!" (Echo(Not Found) Else Echo(Found
EndLocal
Timeout -1
So that is three different attempts at the same task, how do they work for you?
There is not any universal, simple, direct way to check if the current folder is included in the path variable using findstr because for each referenced folder inside path: it can be an absolute or relative reference, it can include or not an ending backslash, it can be or not quoted, it can include or not special characters, it can include (if quoted) semicolons, ...
In top of that, in order to use findstr to do the check you will need to handle problems with the backslash characters as they are used as escape characters in regular expressions but also in literals when preceding a non alphanumeric character. Try
echo x:\_uno\ | findstr /L /c:"x:\_uno" && echo Yes || echo No
So, you will need to process each value inside the path variable dealing with quoted semicolons, special characters, backslashes, ...
Fortunately this was solved by Jeb and dbenham in the 'Pretty print' windows %PATH% variable - how to split on ';' in CMD shell. Using their code to enumerate the elements it the path variable, and the approach in the Magoo's answer in this question, we can write somenthing like
#echo off
setlocal enableextensions disabledelayedexpansion
rem Flag variable. Assume current folder is not present in path variable
set "present="
rem This code uses:
rem Q: Pretty print %path% https://stackoverflow.com/q/5471556
rem A: Jeb answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/5472168
rem A: dbenham enhancement https://stackoverflow.com/a/7940444
set "var=%path:"=""%"
set "var=%var:^=^^%"
set "var=%var:&=^&%"
set "var=%var:|=^|%"
set "var=%var:<=^<%"
set "var=%var:>=^>%"
set "var=%var:;=^;^;%"
set var=%var:""="%
set "var=%var:"=""Q%"
set "var=%var:;;="S"S%"
set "var=%var:^;^;=;%"
set "var=%var:""="%"
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set "var=!var:"Q=!"
rem Get a reference to current folder (%%c) and check against each
rem delimited value inside the processed variable
for %%c in (.) do for %%a in ("!var:"S"S=";"!") do (
if "!!"=="" endlocal
if %%a neq "" for %%b in ("%%~fa.") do (
if /i "%%~fb"=="%%~fc" set "present=1"
)
)
if defined present (
echo Current folder is INCLUDED in path variable
) else (
echo Current folder is NOT included in path variable
)
For each element in the path, resolve it to the full qualified path and check against the full qualified path of the current folder.
Trying to setup a simple build script that will expand the path based on other environment variables. This little script works fine:
echo off
call c:\vstudio\vc\bin\vcvars32.bat
set _ISGIT=1
echo current path is %PATH%
if defined _ISGIT set PATH=c:\git\bin;%PATH%
But if I want to do execute multiple lines based on the existence of the _ISGIT variable, then I thought this would work
echo off
call c:\vstudio\vc\bin\vcvars32.bat
set _ISGIT=1
echo current path is %PATH%
if defined _ISGIT (
set PATH=c:\git\bin;%PATH%
set PATH=c:\foo;%PATH%
)
But that yields the following output:
D:\>test.cmd
D:\>echo off
current path is C:\vstudio\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TestWindow;C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin;C:\
vstudio\Common7\IDE\;C:\vstudio\VC\BIN;C:\vstudio\Common7\Tools;C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319;C:\vstudio
\VC\VCPackages;C:\Program Files (x86)\HTML Help Workshop;C:\vstudio\Team Tools\Performance Tools;C:\Program Files (x86)\
Windows Kits\10\bin\x86;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.6.1 Tools\;C:\ProgramData\Oracl
e\Java\javapath;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\U
sers\jselbie\.dnx\bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft DNX\Dnvm\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Windows Performance To
olkit\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\;C:\nodejs\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\;C:\WINDOWS\s
ystem32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Co
rporation\PhysX\Common;C:\Users\jselbie\.dnx\bin;C:\Users\jselbie\AppData\Roaming\npm;%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Micros
oft\WindowsApps;
MSBuild\14.0\bin was unexpected at this time.
The MSBuild\14.0\bin was unexpected is likely a side effect of the original path containing a directory with a space. The presence of a space in the expanded command with the () seems to throw the script off.
How do I workaround this without having to have independent if defined statements?
There are two things wrong. First, one of the directories in the path contains parentheses. Variable expansion is performed before parsing, so the closing parenthesis from PATH is taken as the closing parenthesis of the IF block. To fix this, you need to put your assignment in quotes: set "PATH=...".
Secondly, inside a block (denoted by parentheses) all environment variables in the whole block are first expanded at once. Then the block is parsed. This means the expanded path in the second line is the same as it is on the first line. It is not changed by the first line. To fix this, you should either change the path entirely in one line:
if defined _ISGIT (
set "PATH=c:\foo;c:\git\bin;%PATH%"
)
or use delayed expansion:
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
if defined _ISGIT (
set "PATH=c:\git\bin;!PATH!"
set "PATH=c:\foo;!PATH!"
)
Delayed expansion works by expanding a variable at a later stage, i.e. after the variable has been assigned by the first line. It has to be enabled with the setlocal command before it can be used.
set "PATH=c:\git\bin;%PATH%"
set "PATH=c:\foo;%PATH%"
using the quotes makes cmd interpret the quoted-string as a single token, so it doesn't see the ) within the variable [ie path] which is closing the if defined ... (
A contribution to nearly exhaustive Klitos Kyriacou's answer.
There is an implicit endlocal command at the end of a batch
file.
Hence, your test.cmd should be as follows (read ENDLOCAL):
#echo off
call c:\vstudio\vc\bin\vcvars32.bat
set _ISGIT=1
echo current path is %PATH%
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
if defined _ISGIT (
set "PATH=c:\git\bin;!PATH!"
set "PATH=c:\foo;!PATH!"
)
endlocal&(
set "PATH=%PATH%"
)
or as follows (read CALL, note doubled percent signs):
#echo off
call c:\vstudio\vc\bin\vcvars32.bat
set _ISGIT=1
echo current path is %PATH%
if defined _ISGIT (
call set "PATH=c:\git\bin;%%PATH%%"
call set "PATH=c:\foo;%%PATH%%"
)
I have this batch file to append a environment variable if not exists
setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set echo off
set envPath=%PATH%
set comPath=";D:\Package\Libraries\Lib"
if x%envPath:comPath=%==x%envPath% (
setx PATH "%PATH%;D:\Package\Libraries\Lib" /M
)
pause
But its not working and says file was unexpected this time
I wrote based on Batch file: Find if substring is in string (not in a file)
As mentioned in the above comment, use delayed expansion in the main string, and regular expansion in the replace string. Run this batch as Admin from shortcut or from Admin Cmd Prompt:
#echo off
setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set "comPath=D:\Package\Libraries\Lib"
set "envPath=%PATH%" & set "Separator="
if not "%envPath:~-1%" == ";" set "Separator=;"
if "!envPath:%comPath%=!"=="%envPath%" (
setx PATH "%PATH%%Separator%%comPath%" /M )
timeout 5
exit /b
Note that updated PATH will be re-read from Registry only upon Cmd restart. If you need to use the amended PATH in the same batch, use SET instead of SETX to set the PATH temporarily for that Cmd session.
In a similar construct, if your extra path comPath is set inside IF or FOR loop, use call set "PATH=%%envPath:!comPath!=%%" instead.
Scope: Windows XP or newer
Tools: Batch script
I need to be able to remove an unneeded path name from the system %PATH% variable. I know how to add a new path name to the system %PATH% variable, using a tool such as SETX.EXE, which also makes it immediately available within the existing CMD environment. It's probably a matter of using FIND and/or a FOR loop of some kind, but I'm not quite sure how to accomplish this. Here's a sample path statement...
%PATH% = C:\;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Java;C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\bin;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\system32;
From this, I need to be able to remove the full path name related to "oracle." So, in the above example, I need to be able to remove the "C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\bin" from the above path statement. Unfortunately, not only could the oracle path name be different than shown above, there could be multiple oracle path names and all need to be removed. I tried implementing the solution here...
How can I extract a full path from the PATH environment variable?
However, it just isn't working. The script wouldn't find the path name. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
This removes the substring C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin; from the PATH string and re-assigns:
set PATH=%PATH:C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin;=%
You might use this to see the change:
echo %PATH:C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin;=% | tr ; \n
Note: be exact on the substring. It's case-sensitive and slash-sensitive.
If you need to make it a persistent change use setx instead of set and open another console for changes to take effect.
setx /M PATH "%PATH:C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin;=%"
You can try something like this :
#echo off&cls
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set $line=%path%
set $line=%$line: =#%
set $line=%$line:;= %
for %%a in (%$line%) do echo %%a | find /i "oracle" || set $newpath=!$newpath!;%%a
set $newpath=!$newpath:#= !
echo set path=!$newpath:~1!
I putted an echo to the last line. Check the result and If it's OK for you, remove it.
After trying SachaDee's answers I got errors with paths like
C:\Program Files (x86)
with brackets:
Program Files (x86)\Directory
gave me
Directorywas unexpected at this time. (no matter what time I tried it)
I added
set $line=%$line:)=^^)%
before the for-loop and
set $newpath=!$newpath:^^=!
after the loop (not sure if it is necessary)
#echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set path
set $line=%path%
set $line=%$line: =#%
set $line=%$line:;= %
set $line=%$line:)=^^)%
for %%a in (%$line%) do echo %%a | find /i "oracle" || set $newpath=!$newpath!;%%a
set $newpath=!$newpath:#= !
set $newpath=!$newpath:^^=!
set path=!$newpath:~1!
And it is now working.
I found the other solutions to this problem a bit awkward, I don't really want to rely on exact paths, complex 'delayed expansion' syntax, removing spaces for the 'for /f' loop and then adding them back in...
I think this is more elegant, and I commented the hell out of it so even someone new to the horrors of Batch can follow along.
::Turn off command display and allows environmental variables to be overridden for the current session
#echo off & setlocal
::Creates a unique file to use for the 'for loop'
set "TMPFILE="%temp%\tmp%RANDOM%%RANDOM%.txt""
::Duplicate PATH into OLDPATH
set "OLDPATH=%PATH%"
::Declare label for the 'goto' command
:Loop
::Extract the first text token with the default delimiter of semicolon
for /f "tokens=1 delims=;" %%G in ("%OLDPATH%") do (
REM Copy text token to TMPFILE unless what we want to remove is found
<NUL set /p="%%G" | find /i "StRiNgThAtMaTcHeSwHaTtOrEmOvE" >NUL 2>&1 || <NUL set /p="%%G;" >>%TMPFILE%
REM Remove text token from OLDPATH
set "OLDPATH=%OLDPATH:*;=%"
)
::Repeat loop until OLDPATH no longer has any delimiters, and then add any remaining value to TMPFILE
echo %OLDPATH% | findstr /C:";" >NUL && (goto :Loop) || <NUL set /p="%OLDPATH%" >>%TMPFILE%
::Set the path to TMPFILE
for /f "usebackq delims=" %%G in (%TMPFILE%) do (set "PATH=%%G")
::Clean-up
del %TMPFILE% >NUL 2>&1
::An echo and pause just for debug purposes
echo %PATH%
pause
I use this in CYGWIN to filter out CYGWIN paths before starting some Windows commands:
export PATH=`perl -e '#a=grep {$_ =~ /^\/cygdrive\//} split(":", $ENV{PATH});print join(":",#a)'`
I'm quite sure it's easy to adapt to Windows-native perl and bat files. Advantage: the flexible power of regular expressions.
I wanted to remove %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\WindowsApps; from PATH. But this was not possible due to using a another variable in the environment variable for Windows. The CALL hack is worked in SS64. (Also, thanks to Jens A. Koch for the base command.)
CALL set PATH=%PATH:%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\WindowsApps;=%
Of course, the PATH changing by SET will not be permanent. For fixed change, it is necessary to use the SETX command or directly change the entries in the Registry.
Actually, this solution was not needed to delete %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\WindowsApps; from PATH.
The %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\WindowsApps; is stored in the PATH entry of the Registry's HKCU\Environment key. Although it is more practical to delete this entry with the REG DELETE command, if there are another directories in the PATH entry, they will also be deleted, so new solution is needed.
I failed to remove the %USERPROFILE% variable syntax from SET (The %% symbol dilemma). Fortunately, PShell came to the rescue:
SET userprofile=
Powershell -c "$UserEnvironmentPath = [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('Path', 'User'); $UserEnvironmentPath = $UserEnvironmentPath.Replace('%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;',''); [Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::SetValue('HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment', 'Path', $UserEnvironmentPath, [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryValueKind]::ExpandString)"
Special thanks to vonpryz for the last command. Because PowerShell's [System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable command saves variables to Registry as REG_SZ even if their original value type is REG_EXPAND_SZ, which it's the known issue.
I wrote this code to simply remove any python executeable path from the path variable,
and insert my own specefic python version in the path so i can run python with
the versoin i wanted.
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
set path`enter code here`
set $line=%path%
set $line=%$line: =#%
set $line=%$line:;= %
set $line=%$line:)=^^)%
set newpath=
for %%a in (%$line%) do (
echo %%a | find /i "python" ||set newpath=!newpath!;%%a
)
set path=!newpath!
set PATH=D:\python2.7\;%PATH%
#REM Rest of your script
python --version
#REM to exit the batch but not the window
exit /b
also, the first line is important! don't remove it or it wont work.
Notice: this code must run from a batch ".bat" file , if u want to copy paste this code in cmd window, you must replace all "%%a" to "%a" in this code.
If you know a file that exists within the directory you want to remove (e.g. want to remove all paths that might include java.exe), the following will work very straightforwardly by simply doing string replacement, no need to parse the path, etc:
#REM Executable to look for
set CMD=java.exe
:search
#REM Find the executable anywhere in the path
for %%a in (%CMD%) do set FOUND=%%~$PATH:a
if "%FOUND%"=="" goto done
#REM Strip \cmd.ext so we just have the directory
set FOUND=!FOUND:\%CMD%=!
#echo Found %CMD% in %FOUND%
#echo Removing %FOUND% from path...
set "PATH=!PATH:%FOUND%=!"
#REM Clean up any lone leftover \ in the path (in case the path was C:\foo\ instead of C:\foo)
set PATH=%PATH:;\;=;%
goto search
:done