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Accepted
Jeremy Stein
Asked: 2010-05-05 10:20:18 +0800 CST

Spaces in SETX PATH command

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Suppose my PATH is C:\WINDOWS\system32\;C:\Program Files\Important\

SET NEW_PATH=C:\My\Dir\
SETX PATH "%PATH%;%NEW_PATH%"

Results in a path of:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\;C:\Program Files\Important\;C:\My\Dir"

Notice the quotation mark at the end of the path. It's as though the backslash at the end of %NEW_PATH% escaped the final quote mark. I need the quotation marks because I have spaces in my path, but I don't want backslashes to be interpreted as escape characters.

What's the right way to include my PATH in the call to SETX?

windows-server-2003 environment-variables batch-file

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Don't put a backslash at the end of %NEW_PATH%.

    If you got random input to begin with instead of stuff you control, then you can do one of the following:

    • Leave out the closing quotation mark. This does work in some cases:

      > setx foo "bar baz

> echo %foo%
bar baz

      But doesn't do so well in others:

      > setx foo "Some stuff "with" embeddded quotes

> echo %foo%
Some stuff with embeddded quotes

      However, you have that problem already to begin with, so what you did there was dangerous at best, since it would destroy quoted paths (which you need if your path includes a semicolon).

      Which leads us to the following option:

    • Properly escape whatever goes into the command:

      set NEW_PATH=C:\I\Hate\User\Dirs\In\The\Root\
rem Note the extra quotation marks; we're constructing the complete
rem argument to setx here.
set NEW_PATH_VAR="%PATH%;%NEW_PATH%"
rem The great escape
set NEW_PATH_VAR=%NEW_PATH_VAR:"=\"%
setx PATH %NEW_PATH_VAR%
    • 6

  2. If NEW_PATH does not contain spaces, then you do not need to quote it:

    SET NEW_PATH=C:\My\Dir\
SETX PATH "%PATH%";%NEW_PATH%

    If NEW_PATH does contain spaces, you could use the literal value, and again not quote the final backslash:

    SETX PATH "%PATH%;C:\My Dir"\
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