How to remove permanently a path from the fish $PATH?

Question

This question has already been asked, and answered here: https://superuser.com/a/940041/293429

However, the provided solution: executing set -e PATH[<index-of-the-path-to-be-removed] only applies to the running instance and is not valid universally.

After executing that command, if one executes echo $PATH the previously removed paths will occur again.

One way to completely reset the path is to execute: set -U fish_user_paths, but it is unclear to me that what it does.

The real trick would be to find out how to remove a path which has been manually added and make it available globally -- not only for the current instance?

Answer 1

There's two ways to do this, and which one is valid depends on how the path got into $PATH.

It is possible to add directories to $PATH via e.g. set PATH $PATH /some/dir. At least by default, PATH is a global variable, which means it is per-session. That means to change something from $PATH, either remove it from where it is added (which is likely outside of fish since it inherits it), or put the set -e call in your ~/.config/fish/config.fish so it will be executed on every start.

There is also $fish_user_paths, which is a universal variable (meaning it carries the same value across fish sessions and is synchronized across them). On startup and whenever fish_user_paths is modified, fish adds it to $PATH. If the offending directory is added here, execute set -e fish_user_paths[index] once (e.g. in an interactive session).

set -e fish_user_paths would remove the entire variable (while set -U fish_user_paths would clear it) which would also work but would also remove all other paths