TOPIC

Aliases

SHORT DESCRIPTION

Using alternate names for cmdlets and commands in Windows PowerShell

LONG DESCRIPTION

An alias is an alternate name or nickname for a cmdlet or a command element, such as a function, script, file, or executable file. You can use the alias in place of the command name.

For example, if you establish the alias "gas" for Get-AuthenticodeSignature, you can type:

gas c:\scripts\sqlscript.ps1

instead of:

get-authenticodesignature c:\scripts\sqlscript.ps1

word

instead of:

"c:\program files\microsoft office\office11\winword.exe"

PREDEFINED ALIASES

Windows PowerShell includes a set of predefined aliases, including "cd" and "chdir" for Set-Location, and "ls" and "dir" for Get-Childitem.

To find all of the aliases on the system, including the predefined aliases, type:

get-alias

ALIAS CMDLETS

Windows PowerShell includes several cmdlets designed for working with aliases.

Get-Alias: Gets all aliases in the current session.

New-Alias: Creates a new alias. Set-Alias: Creates or changes an alias. Export-Alias: Exports one or more aliases to a file. Import-Alias: Imports an alias file into Windows PowerShell.

get-help <cmdlet-name> -detailed

For example:

get-help export-alias -detailed

CREATING AN ALIAS

To create a new alias, use the New-Alias cmdlet. For example, to create the "gh" alias for Get-Help, type,

new-alias -name gh -value get-help

For example, to get detailed help for the Get-WmiObject cmdlet, you can type:

get-help get-wmiobject -detailed

- or -

gh get-wmiobject -detailed

SAVING ALIASES

The aliases that you create are saved only to the current session. To use the aliases in a different session, you must add the alias to your Windows PowerShell profile or use Export-Alias to save the aliases to a file.

FINDING ALIASES

To find all of the aliases in the current console, including the aliases that Windows PowerShell defines, the aliases in your Windows PowerShell profile, and the aliases that you have created in the current session, type:

get-alias

get-alias -name p*

get-alias | where-object {$_.Definition -eq "<cmdlet-name>"}

For example:

get-alias | where-object {$_.Definition -eq "Remove-Item"}

ALTERNATE NAMES FOR COMMANDS WITH PARAMETERS

You can assign an alias to a cmdlet, script, function, or executable file, but you cannot assign an alias to a command and its parameters. For example, you can assign an alias to "Get-Eventlog", but you cannot assign an alias to "Get-Eventlog -logname security".

However, you can create a function that includes the command. For example, the following command creates a function called "seclog" that represents the "get-eventlog -logname security" command.

function seclog {get-eventlog -logname security}

For information about functions, type:

get-help about_function

ALIAS OBJECTS

Windows PowerShell aliases are represented by objects that are instances of the System.Management.Automation.AliasInfo class. For information about this type of object, see the "AliasInfo Class" topic in MSDN.

To see the properties and methods of the alias objects, get the aliases and pipe them to the Get-Member cmdlet. For example,

get-alias | get-member

get-alias -name dir | format-list -property *

WINDOWS POWERSHELL ALIAS PROVIDER

Windows PowerShell includes an Alias provider that lets you view the aliases in Windows PowerShell as though they were in a file system drive.

The Alias provider exposes a drive called "Alias:". To go into the Alias: drive, type:

set-location alias:

get-childitem

To see the contents of the drive from any other Windows PowerShell

get-childitem -path alias:

get-childitem -path alias:p*

get-help alias-psprovider

SEE ALSO

For a list the alias-related cmdlets, type:

get-help *-Alias

For information about functions, type:

get-help about_function