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 using Get-Alias, as shown in the following example:
PS> Get-Alias
CommandType 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
- ls or dir for Get-ChildItem
- man for help (and then Get-Help)
An alias does not change how a command is used. There is no practical difference between the following two following commands:
cd $env:TEMP Set-Location $env:TEMP
New aliases are created with the New-Alias command; for example, we might choose to create an alias named grep for Select-String:
New-Alias grep -Value Select-String
Each alias exists until the PowerShell session is closed.
More information is available about aliases in the help file that may be viewed using the following command:
Get-Help about_Aliases