Mastering Windows PowerShell Scripting - Third Edition

Aliases

An alias in PowerShell is an alternate name for a command. A command may have more than one alias.

The list of aliases may be viewed by using Get-Alias, as shown in the following example:

PS> Get-AliasCommandType Name ----------- ---- Alias       % -> ForEach-Object Alias       ? -> Where-Object Alias       ac -> Add-Content Alias       asnp -> Add-PSSnapin Alias       cat -> Get-Content Alias       cd -> Set-Location 

Get-Alias may be used to find the command behind an alias:

Get-Alias dir 

It can also be used to find the aliases for a command name:

Get-Alias -Definition Get-ChildItem 

Examples of aliases that are frequently used in examples on the internet include the following:

• % for ForEach-Object
• ? for Where-Object
• cd for Set-Location
• gc or cat for Get-Content ...