Re: IBM i for Wintel Hackers - Silent Signal TROOPERS24 Presentation

On Thu, Sep 19, 2024 at 3:14 AM Patrik Schindler <poc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

2) Additionally, AFAIK, there are no built in tools to manipulate the path on Windows. You can basically set or replace it.

I'm not a Windows guy, so I can only speak for UNIX compatible systems. There, it's a simple environment variable you can manipulate with the available tools. Not having a proper "front end" for comfy manipulation isn't necessarily the fault of the underlying PATH concept, though. :-)

The situation in Windows is more-or-less the same as for Unixy
systems. Neither has built-in tools dedicated to manipulating PATH as
though it were a list of directories (as opposed to a string of
characters). In other words, no ADDLIBLE or RMVLIBLE, with all their
attendant options. I think it's fair to say you can only "set or
replace" the whole thing.

But what those systems have is a wealth of easy and powerful string
processing tools, and you can manipulate PATH as a string. It's
trivial to add a directory at the beginning or end. If you need
something fancier, and you're skilled at the command line, you can
craft a one-liner out of built-ins. If you're not an expert at the
command line, there are a plethora of scripting languages available
for you to write your own equivalents to ADDLIBLE and RMVLIBLE.

John Y.