sindresorhus / path-key

Get the PATH environment variable key cross-platform

path-key

Get the PATH environment variable key cross-platform

It's usually PATH but on Windows it can be any casing like Path...

Install

$ npm install path-key

Usage

import pathKey from 'path-key';

const key = pathKey();
//=> 'PATH'

const PATH = process.env[key];
//=> '/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin'

API

pathKey(options?)

options

Type: object

env

Type: object
Default: process.env

Use a custom environment variables object.

platform

Type: string
Default: process.platform

Get the PATH key for a specific platform.

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path-key's Issues

Maybe not need this library

https://nodejs.org/api/process.html#process_process_env

On Windows operating systems, environment variables are case-insensitive.

This means process.env.PATH always exists on windows.

Name of the path key is `Path` on Windows Bash

In windows 10, we can now have bash which runs basically Ubuntu underneath, see: https://www.howtogeek.com/249966/how-to-install-and-use-the-linux-bash-shell-on-windows-10/.

Still, the env variables are based on the host OS. This means that the env variable is Path and not PATH.

// foo.js
console.log(process.platform);
console.log(process.env);

node foo.js

'linux'
{
  ....
  Path: 'C:\\Windows\\system32;C:\\Windows;C:\\Windows\\System32\\Wbem;C:\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\;C:\\Program Files (x86)\\NVIDIA Corporation\\PhysX\\Common;C:\\WINDOWS\\system32;C:\\WINDOWS;C:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\Wbem;C:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\;C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\;C:\\Users\\andre\\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\WindowsApps;C:\\Users\\andre\\AppData\\Local\\atom\\bin;C:\\Users\\andre\\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\WindowsApps;C:\\Users\\andre\\AppData\\Roaming\\npm',
  PATHEXT: '.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC',
}

I think that we should remove the OS detection. Perhaps we simply detect if PATH exists and short-cirtcuit it. For anything else, we do the case comparison.