I would like to run the Test-Path, or something similar the completes my purpose to find the invalid paths in my path variable.

The main thing I have done is search for

test path system variable for invalid entries

This did not find anything.

This example is just to show I have tried something, but I don't really know what the best command it.

Test-Path -Path %Path% -PathType Any

Update

These scripts enabled my to find a couple bad paths and fix them

@Mathias

Here is @Mathias suggestion

PS C:\Program Files\RStudio\bin\quarto\bin> $env:Path -split ';'|?{-not($_|Test-Path)}
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\150\DTS\Binn\
C:\RBuildTools\4.0usr\bin\
Test-Path : Cannot bind argument to parameter 'Path' because it is an empty string.
At line:1 char:32
  $env:Path -split ';'|?{-not($_|Test-Path)}
                                 ~~~~~~~~~
      CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (:PSObject) [Test-Path], ParameterBindingValidationException
      FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationErrorEmptyStringNotAllowed,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Test
   PathCommand

@panomosh

@panomosh suggestion

PS C:\Program Files\Quarto\bin> foreach($path in ((gci -path env:\path | select -exp Value).split(";"))){ if(Test-Path
path){ write-host "True - $path" -ForegroundColor Green } else { write-host "False - $path" -ForegroundColor Red  }}
True - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath
True - C:\Python27\
True - C:\Python27\Scripts
True - C:\Oracle\app\client\product\12.2.0\client_1
True - C:\Oracle\app\client\product\12.2.0\client_1\bin
True - C:\Program Files\Microsoft MPI\Bin\
True - C:\Windows\system32
True - C:\Windows
True - C:\Windows\System32\Wbem
True - C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
True - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\130\DTS\Binn\
True - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\DTS\Binn\
True - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\Client SDK\ODBC\130\Tools\Binn\
True - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\
True - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\
True - C:\Program Files\dotnet\
True - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\Client SDK\ODBC\130\Tools\Binn\
True - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\140\Tools\Binn\
True - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\140\DTS\Binn\
True - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\140\Tools\Binn\ManagementStudio\
True - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\Client SDK\ODBC\170\Tools\Binn\
True - C:\Program Files (x86)\Wolfram Research\WolframScript\
True - C:\Program Files\Git\cmd
True - C:\Program Files\nodejs\
True - C:\Program Files (x86)\dotnet\
True - C:\Program Files\Wolfram Research\WolframScript\
True - C:\Program Files\Azure Data Studio\bin
True - C:\Program Files\Microsoft VS Code\bin
True - C:\Users\hnelson3\AppData\Local\Programs\Azure Data Studio\bin
True - C:\Program Files\Azure Data Studio\bin
True - C:\Users\hnelson3\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code Insiders\bin
True - C:\Users\hnelson3\AppData\Roaming\TinyTeX\bin\win32
Test-Path : Cannot bind argument to parameter 'Path' because it is an empty string.
At line:1 char:88
  ... v:\path | select -exp Value).split(";"))){ if(Test-Path $path){ write ...
                                                              ~~~~~
      CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (:) [Test-Path], ParameterBindingValidationException
      FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationErrorEmptyStringNotAllowed,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Test
   PathCommand

CodePudding user response：

Heres a way to do it that will output each path on a new line, it will start with "false" and will be Red if the path is invalid, and will say "true" and be green if successful

foreach($path in ((gci -path env:\path | select -exp Value).split(";"))){ if(Test-Path $path){ write-host "True - $path" -ForegroundColor Green } else { write-host "False - $path" -ForegroundColor Red  }}

CodePudding user response：

Building on Mathias R. Jessen's great solution in a comment:

# Output those entries that refer to nonexistent paths.
$env:PATH -split [IO.Path]::PathSeparator -ne '' |
  Where-Object { -not (Test-Path $_) }

• Using the all uppercase form PATH of the variable name and [IO.Path]::PathSeparator as the separator to -split by makes the command cross-platform:

  • On Unix-like platforms environment variable names are case-sensitive, so using $env:PATH (all-upercase) is required; by contrast, Windows is not case-sensitive, so $env:PATH works there too, even though the actual case of the name is Path.

  • On Unix-like platforms, : separates the entries in $env:PATH, whereas it is ; on Windows - [IO.Path]::PathSeparator returns the platform-appropriate character.

• -ne '' filters out any empty tokens resulting from the -split operation, which could result from directly adjacent separators in the variable value (e.g., ;;)

  • Note: With a an array as the LHS, such as -split, PowerShell comparison operators such as -eq act as filters and return an array of matching items rather than a Boolean - see about_Comparison_Operators.

• The Where-Object call filters the input directory paths down to those that do not exist, and outputs them (which prints to the display by default).

  • Note that, strictly speaking, Test-Path's first positional parameter is -Path, which interprets its argument as a wildcard expression.
  • For full robustness, Test-Path -LiteralPath $_ is needed, to rule out inadvertent interpretation of literal paths that happen to contain [ as wildcards - though with entries in $env:PATH that seems unlikely.