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-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 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.