• The PowerShell-idiomatic approach is to:

  • Define a command (function) that adheres to PowerShell's <verb>-<noun> naming convention, using one of the approved verbs.

  • Use an alias to provide another, typically shorter, name for the command, that isn't bound by this convention.

• Using -split, the string splitting operator, limiting the number of resulting tokens to 2, allows you to split each name-value pair into its constituent parts, and the Env: drive can be used to define a process-scoped environment variable for each pair.

• Given that the export builtin in POSIX-compatible shells such as Bash accepts multiple <name>=<value> pairs (e.g. export FOO='bar none' BAZ=2), so does the function below.

  • Caveat: POSIX-compatible shells allow defining environment variables without a value (e.g. export FOO), which PowerShell and .NET do not support: assigning $null or '' invariably undefines (removes) an environment variable there.
    Therefore, the function below only accepts <name>=<value> pairs, and reports a non-terminating error if a given argument lacks an = or a value thereafter.

Set-Alias export Set-EnvironmentVariableByNameValuePair

function Set-EnvironmentVariableByNameValuePair {
  param(
    [Parameter(Mandatory, ValueFromPipeline, ValueFromRemainingArguments)]
    [string[]] $NameValuePair
  )
  process {
    foreach ($pair in $NameValuePair) {
       $name, $value = $pair -split '=', 2
       if (-not $name or -not $value) { Write-Error "Not in <name>=<value> format: `"$pair`". For technical reasons, you must supply a value."; continue }
       Set-Content Env:$name $value
    }
  }
}

Note:

• The above is more permissive than POSIX-compatible shells with respect to the names of environment variables - even though names that do not adhere to the constraints spelled out below are supported by the underlying platforms themselves.

• If you want to enforce the same name constraints that Bash does, insert the following before the Set-Content call:

  if ($name -notmatch '^[a-z_]\w*$') { Write-Error "Invalid name: $name"; continue } 
  

• See also:

  • GitHub issue #3316, which asks for PowerShell to support the / something like the concise syntax that POSIX-compatible shells offer for defining child-process-scoped environment variables (e.g. FOO='bar none' BAZ=2 some_utility ...)

• The PowerShell-idiomatic approach is to:

  • Define a command (function) that adheres to PowerShell's <verb>-<noun> naming convention, using one of the approved verbs.

  • Use an alias to provide another, typically shorter, name for the command, that isn't bound by this convention.

• Using -split, the string splitting operator, limiting the number of resulting tokens to 2, allows you to split each name-value pair into its constituent parts, and the Env: drive can be used to define a process-scoped environment variable for each pair.

• Given that the export builtin in POSIX-compatible shells such as Bash accepts multiple <name>=<value> pairs (e.g. export FOO='bar none' BAZ=2), so does the function below.

  • Caveat: POSIX-compatible shells allow defining environment variables without a value (e.g. export FOO), which PowerShell and .NET do not support: assigning $null or '' invariably undefines (removes) an environment variable there.
    Therefore, the function below only accepts <name>=<value> pairs, and reports a non-terminating error if a given argument lacks an = or a value thereafter.

Set-Alias export Set-EnvironmentVariableByNameValuePair

function Set-EnvironmentVariableByNameValuePair {
  param(
    [Parameter(Mandatory, ValueFromPipeline, ValueFromRemainingArguments)]
    [string[]] $NameValuePair
  )
  process {
    foreach ($pair in $NameValuePair) {
       $name, $value = $pair -split '=', 2
       if (-not $name -or -not $value) { Write-Error "Not in <name>=<value> format: `"$pair`". For technical reasons, you must supply a value."; continue }
       Set-Content Env:$name $value
    }
  }
}

Note:

• The above is more permissive than POSIX-compatible shells with respect to the names of environment variables - even though names that do not adhere to the constraints spelled out below are supported by the underlying platforms themselves.

• If you want to enforce the same name constraints that Bash does, insert the following before the Set-Content call:

  if ($name -notmatch '^[a-z_]\w*$') { Write-Error "Invalid name: $name"; continue } 
  

• See also:

  • GitHub issue #3316, which asks for PowerShell to support the / something like the concise syntax that POSIX-compatible shells offer for defining child-process-scoped environment variables (e.g. FOO='bar none' BAZ=2 some_utility ...)

• The PowerShell-idiomatic approach is to:

  • Define a command (function) that adheres to PowerShell's <verb>-<noun> naming convention, using one of the approved verbs.

  • Use an alias to provide another, typically shorter, name for the command, that isn't bound by this convention.

• Using -split, the string splitting operator, limiting the number of resulting tokens to 2, allows you to split each name-value pair into its constituent parts, and the Env: drive can be used to define a process-scoped environment variable for each pair.

• Given that the export builtin in POSIX-compatible shells such as Bash accepts multiple <name>=<value> pairs (e.g. export FOO='bar none' BAZ=2), so does the function below.

  • Caveat: POSIX-compatible shells allow defining environment variables without a value (e.g. export FOO), which PowerShell and .NET do not support: assigning $null or '' invariably undefines (removes) an environment variable there.
    Therefore, the function below only accepts <name>=<value> pairs, and reports a non-terminating error if a given argument lacks an = or a value thereafter.

Set-Alias export Set-EnvironmentVariableByNameValuePair

function Set-EnvironmentVariableByNameValuePair {
  param(
    [Parameter(Mandatory, ValueFromPipeline, ValueFromRemainingArguments)]
    [string[]] $NameValuePair
  )
  process {
    foreach ($pair in $NameValuePair) {
       $name, $value = $pair -split '=', 2
       if (-not $name or -not $value) { Write-Error "Not in <name>=<value> format: `"$pair`". For technical reasons, you must supply a value."; continue }
       Set-Content Env:$name $value
    }
  }
}

Note:

• The above is more permissive than POSIX-compatible shells with respect to the names of environment variables - even though names that do not adhere to the constraints spelled out below are supported by the respective system itself.

• If you want to enforce the same name constraints that Bash does, insert the following before the Set-Content call:

  if ($name -notmatch '^[a-z_]\w*$') { Write-Error "Invalid name: $name"; continue } 
  

• See also:

  • GitHub issue #3316, which asks for PowerShell to support the / something like the concise syntax that POSIX-compatible shells offer for defining child-process-scoped environment variables (e.g. FOO='bar none' BAZ=2 some_utility ...)

• The PowerShell-idiomatic approach is to:

  • Define a command (function) that adheres to PowerShell's <verb>-<noun> naming convention, using one of the approved verbs.

  • Use an alias to provide another, typically shorter, name for the command, that isn't bound by this convention.

• Using -split, the string splitting operator, limiting the number of resulting tokens to 2, allows you to split each name-value pair into its constituent parts, and the Env: drive can be used to define a process-scoped environment variable for each pair.

• Given that the export builtin in POSIX-compatible shells such as Bash accepts multiple <name>=<value> pairs (e.g. export FOO='bar none' BAZ=2), so does the function below.

  • Caveat: POSIX-compatible shells allow defining environment variables without a value (e.g. export FOO), which PowerShell and .NET do not support: assigning $null or '' invariably undefines (removes) an environment variable there.
    Therefore, the function below only accepts <name>=<value> pairs, and reports a non-terminating error if a given argument lacks an = or a value thereafter.

Set-Alias export Set-EnvironmentVariableByNameValuePair

function Set-EnvironmentVariableByNameValuePair {
  param(
    [Parameter(Mandatory, ValueFromPipeline, ValueFromRemainingArguments)]
    [string[]] $NameValuePair
  )
  process {
    foreach ($pair in $NameValuePair) {
       $name, $value = $pair -split '=', 2
       if (-not $name or -not $value) { Write-Error "Not in <name>=<value> format: `"$pair`". For technical reasons, you must supply a value."; continue }
       Set-Content Env:$name $value
    }
  }
}

Note:

• The above is more permissive than POSIX-compatible shells with respect to the names of environment variables - even though names that do not adhere to the constraints spelled out below are supported by the underlying platforms themselves.

• If you want to enforce the same name constraints that Bash does, insert the following before the Set-Content call:

  if ($name -notmatch '^[a-z_]\w*$') { Write-Error "Invalid name: $name"; continue } 
  

• See also:

  • GitHub issue #3316, which asks for PowerShell to support the / something like the concise syntax that POSIX-compatible shells offer for defining child-process-scoped environment variables (e.g. FOO='bar none' BAZ=2 some_utility ...)