PowerShell: Env: Avoid truncation of environment variables

Question

PowerShell displays environment variables, one line for each. If a variable has a long enough value, it is truncated, and appended an ellipsis:

> gci env: Name Value ---- ----- <suppressed lines> PSModulePath C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerSh... <suppressed lines>

Is there any way of obtaining full values for all vars at once, as in a standard cmd prompt? (the answers given for Powershell get-childitem env:path returns ellipsed one line, how to have something useful? would not apply, then).

I've spent an hour on searching for ways to get PowerShell to display the complete content of my path environment variable. It always truncates it to 2452 characters, with or without ellipsis marks, even if I specify wider formatting. This makes it impossible to treat PS as anything other than trivially useful. My opinion of PS is that it's a POS and nothing has changed that. I've read through hundreds of blogs and search results and nobody has a solution. Not even here. — Suncat2000
– Suncat2000, Commented Jun 21, 2017 at 13:11

Knuckle-Dragger · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-18 18:03:48Z

Default formatting truncates, specify -Wrap and see full output.

gci env: | Format-Table -Wrap -AutoSize

Result

PSModulePath C:\Users\KNUCKLE-DRAGGER\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules;C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\

or if you prefer the output to exactly simulate cmd.exe, try

cmd /c start /b set

Result

PSModulePath=C:\Users\KNUCKLE-DRAGGER\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules;C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\

This is already very good. Any way of getting the same format as a standard cmd prompt? Perhaps invoking cmd.exe from the PowerShell prompt? — sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio
– sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio, Commented Dec 18, 2013 at 17:56
Do PowerShell Users Actually Type EveryThing Using Mixed Case? Because it seems to work fine without all that shift-key prodding. Are there any situations where mixed case is mandatory? — Ed Randall
– Ed Randall, Commented Jul 14, 2020 at 6:59

zdan · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-19 21:24:39Z

5

If you want to emulate set output from powershell without invoking cmd try:

dir env: | %{"{0}={1}" -f $_.Name,$_.Value}

a lot of typing, so wrap it in a function:

function set {dir env: | %{"{0}={1}" -f $_.Name,$_.Value}}

answered Dec 19, 2013 at 21:24

6,0861 gold badge26 silver badges17 bronze badges

2 Answers 2