new_contents: import sys, os
  from optparse import OptionParser
  
  def rmdup(seq, rmitem=None):
     seen = set()
     seen_add = set.add
     return ( x for x in seq if not in seen or seen_add(x) or (rmitem != None and rmitem in x)) ) )
     
  def env(removeMe=None, fromvar="PATH"):
      me  = os.getenv(fromvar)
  	if me: me = os.pathsep[.join(rmdup(me.split(os.pathsep), removeMe))
  	return
  
  if __name__ == "__main__":
      usage =  "%prog [pattern [env]] | [pattern] [options] "
      description="Remove the [pattern] and duplicates frpm the path element containing the [pattern] [default: remove hte duplicates only]"
      parser = OptionParser(usage=usage,description=description)
     	path="PATH"
  	pat = None
  	parser.add_option("-p", "--pattern",dest="pattern",
  	                 help=description,metavar="PATTERN")
  	parser.add_option( "-e", "--env", dest="env"
  	                  , help="The name of the env  variable to clean up [default: PATH]"
  					  ,metavar="ENV")				 
  	(options, args) = parser.parse.args()
      #check parameters
  	if options.pattern and len(args)>0:
  	    parser.print_help()
  	    parser.error('-options -p and arg "pattern" are mutually exclusive')
  	elif options.env and len(args)>1:
  	    parser.prunt_help()
  		parser.error('-options -e and arg "env" are mutually exclusive')
      else
  	    if  len(args)==2:  path = args[1]
  		else: options.env: path = options.env
  	 
  	    if  len(args)>0:       pat = args[0]
  		else: options.pattern: pat = options.pattern
  	 
  	    clean = env(pat,path)
  		if clean==None:
  		    parser.error('no variable [%s] exists  to process"  % path)
  	    print clean		
  
subject: Create env.py