How to print environment variables to the console in PowerShell

Question

I m starting to use PowerShell and am trying to figure out how to echo a system environment variable to the console to read it   Neither of the below are working  The first just prints  PATH   and the second prints nothing   echo  PATH  echo  PATH

User · Accepted Answer

Prefix the variable name with env   env path  For example  if you want to print the value of environment value  quot MINISHIFT USERNAME quot   then command will be   env MINISHIFT USERNAME  You can also enumerate all variables via the env drive  Get-ChildItem env

User · Answer

In addition to Mathias answer   Although not mentioned in OP  if you also need to see the Powershell specific related internal variables  you need to use Get-Variable     Get-Variable  Name                           Value ----                           -----                                name                                True                                gci args                              ChocolateyTabSettings            AllCommands False  ConfirmPreference              High DebugPreference                SilentlyContinue EnabledExperimentalFeatures       Error                           System Management Automation ParseException  At line 1 char 1    ErrorActionPreference          Continue ErrorView                      NormalView ExecutionContext               System Management Automation EngineIntrinsics false                          False FormatEnumerationLimit         4       These also include stuff you may have set in your profile startup script

User · Answer

The following is works best in my opinion  Get-Item Env PATH   It s shorter and therefore a little bit easier to remember than Get-ChildItem  There s no hierarchy with environment variables  The command is symmetrical to one of the ways that s used for setting environment variables with Powershell   EX  Set-Item -Path env SomeVariable -Value  quot Some Value quot   If you get in the habit of doing it this way you ll remember how to list all Environment variables  simply omit the entry portion   EX  Get-Item Env    I found the syntax odd at first  but things started making more sense after I understood the notion of Providers   Essentially PowerShell let s you navigate disparate components of the system in a way that s analogous to a file system  What s the point of the trailing colon in Env    Try listing all of the  quot drives quot  available through Providers like this  PS gt  Get-PSDrive  I only see a few results     Alias  C  Cert  D  Env  Function  HKCU  HKLM  Variable  WSMan   It becomes obvious that Env is simply another  quot drive quot  and the colon is a familiar syntax to anyone who s worked in Windows  You can navigate the drives and pick out specific values  Get-ChildItem C  Windows Get-Item C  Get-Item Env  Get-Item HKLM  Get-ChildItem HKLM SYSTEM

[powershell] How to print environment variables to the console in PowerShell?

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