#2088: skip malformed PATH entries instead of failing with InvalidPathException

CHANGELOG.adoc

@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ Release with new features and bugfixes:
 
 * https://github.com/devonfw/IDEasy/issues/2052[#2052]: Split issue statistics in 2 pie-charts
 * https://github.com/devonfw/IDEasy/issues/822[#822] : Added Cwd path limit in shell
+* https://github.com/devonfw/IDEasy/issues/2088[#2088]: Skip malformed PATH entries instead of failing with InvalidPathException
 
 The full list of changes for this release can be found in https://github.com/devonfw/IDEasy/milestone/46?closed=1[milestone 2026.07.001].
 

cli/src/main/java/com/devonfw/tools/ide/common/SystemPath.java

@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.nio.file.Files;
+import java.nio.file.InvalidPathException;
 import java.nio.file.LinkOption;
 import java.nio.file.Path;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
@@ -16,6 +17,9 @@
 import java.util.regex.Pattern;
 import java.util.stream.Stream;
 
+import org.slf4j.Logger;
+import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
+
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.context.IdeContext;
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.os.SystemInfoImpl;
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.os.WindowsPathSyntax;
@@ -33,6 +37,8 @@
  */
 public class SystemPath {
 
+  private static final Logger LOG = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SystemPath.class);
+
   private static final Pattern REGEX_WINDOWS_PATH = Pattern.compile("([a-zA-Z]:)?(\\\\[a-zA-Z0-9\\s_.-]+)+\\\\?");
 
   private final char pathSeparator;
@@ -96,7 +102,13 @@ public SystemPath(IdeContext context, String envPath, Path ideRoot, Path softwar
     this(context, pathSeparator, extraPathEntries, new HashMap<>(), new ArrayList<>());
     String[] envPaths = envPath.split(Character.toString(pathSeparator));
     for (String segment : envPaths) {
-      Path path = Path.of(segment);
+      Path path;
+      try {
+        path = Path.of(segment);
+      } catch (InvalidPathException e) {
+        LOG.warn("Ignoring invalid PATH entry '{}' - {}", segment, e.getMessage());
+        continue;
+      }
       String tool = getTool(path, ideRoot);
       if (tool == null) {
         this.paths.add(path);

cli/src/test/java/com/devonfw/tools/ide/common/SystemPathTest.java

@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@
 
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.context.AbstractIdeContextTest;
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.context.IdeTestContext;
+import com.devonfw.tools.ide.log.IdeLogLevel;
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.os.SystemInfo;
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.os.SystemInfoMock;
 
@@ -142,6 +143,25 @@ void testFindBinaryFindsNothingWithoutFilter() {
     assertThat(result).isEqualTo(test);
   }
 
+  @Test
+  void testConstructorSkipsMalformedPathEntryAndKeepsValidOnes() {
+    // arrange
+    IdeTestContext context = newContext("find-binary", "project/workspaces", false);
+    String validEntryBefore = "C:\\Tools\\bin";
+    // (char) 0 is an illegal NUL character, making Path.of throw InvalidPathException on every OS
+    String malformedEntry = "broken" + (char) 0 + "entry";
+    String validEntryAfter = "C:\\Other\\bin";
+    String envPath = validEntryBefore + ';' + malformedEntry + ';' + validEntryAfter;
+
+    // act
+    SystemPath systemPath = new SystemPath(context, envPath, context.getIdeRoot(), context.getSoftwarePath(), ';', new ArrayList<>());
+
+    // assert
+    String result = systemPath.toString();
+    assertThat(result).contains(validEntryBefore).contains(validEntryAfter);
+    assertThat(context).log(IdeLogLevel.WARNING).hasMessageContaining("Ignoring invalid PATH entry");
+  }
+
   private static boolean checkPathToIgnoreLowercase(Path p, String toIgnore) {
     String s = p.toAbsolutePath().toString().replace('\\', '/').toLowerCase(Locale.ROOT);
     return !s.contains(toIgnore);