Is there a command to refresh environment variables from the Bash Terminal (Git bash) in Windows?

Question

The problem

I use Git Bash which is based on MinGW. Around the day I often change the Windows PATH environment variable, in it are the paths to my tools, such as PHP, for example.

I use tools to change PHP versions, this tool automatically changes the PHP environment variable to a different version.

I would like to have a command that from the bash terminal itself I can run it and refresh the environment variables.

What have I tried?

I have tried almost everything in this question without any success. The only thing that has worked for me is to run a new terminal with administrator privileges, but I would not want to have this as the best option.

I tried:

the accepted answer
#5
#7
Restart explorer
Chocolatey alternative
An alternative to the Chocolatey command that is supposed to be compatible with Bash. Here is a github issue, has a video that might help you understand what I want to do

I guess none of the above worked for me because they were not made for git bash, that's why I created this question. I have also tried all of the above with a terminal like Cygwin which is similar to Git Bash, without success.

I've come close to achieving this with this command, but I can't get it to work.

export PATH="$(cygpath -pu "`{ reg query 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment' /v PATH | grep PATH | cut -c23- ; reg query 'HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment' /v PATH | grep PATH | cut -c30-; } | tr "\n" " "`")"

Basically what I am trying to achieve with the above command is to take the PATH environment variables out of the registry and put them in export PATH to update bash. But first I have to concatenate the system variables and the user variables. See this for more info.

I always avoid touching the system PATH in Windows. Instead I make changes to PATH inside the shell itself. This allows mo to have different instances of the bash shell doing different things (e.g. using different compiler versions). — Brecht Sanders
– Brecht Sanders, Commented Feb 16, 2022 at 23:05
For example (in bash): export PATH=D:/Perl/bin:$PATH Make sure to avoid spaces and backslashes — Brecht Sanders
– Brecht Sanders, Commented Feb 17, 2022 at 6:38
I use scripts (which I source) which add tool-chain version dependent folders to paths like variables, including PATH and also sets any dependent environment variables. My default setup has no tool-chain specialization. I can start multiple terminal windows or mintty windows, and customize each window by sourcing different scripts so I can test my code with multiple tool-chain versions. This technique works for cmd or terminal windows (using batch scripts) and for cygwin, mingw, git bash, and linux (using bash scripts). This is a safe and reliable method for setting up isolated setups. — Doug Henderson
– Doug Henderson, Commented Feb 17, 2022 at 17:32

MrEduar · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-19 06:04:56Z

2

I used a custom script created by Badr Elmers Works just as I expected and works in Git Bash, Cygwin.

More info here

answered Feb 19, 2022 at 6:04

MrEduar

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Is there a command to refresh environment variables from the Bash Terminal (Git bash) in Windows?

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