PowerShell aliases and missing Microsoft documentation

Unfortunately, in most cases, Microsoft's documentation for a PowerShell cmdlet is lacking information about the aliases.

For instance, the documentation for Get-ChildItem fails to include information about the aliases ls, dir, and gci.

Resolution

Running cmdlet Get-Alias in a PowerShell session will list all aliases (for that version of PowerShell).

The interesting fields in the output from Get-Alias are:


    "Name"           The alias. E.g. "ls"
    "Definition"     The cmdlet. E.g. "Get-Content"


Get-Alias by itself will (roughly) output in alphabetic order of the aliases. Probably more interesting is grouping by cmdlets and then the aliases for that cmdlet in alphabetic order (sort with primary key on "Definition" and secondary key on "Name"):

    Get-Alias | select Name, Definition, DisplayName | Sort-Object Definition, Name

Note that the alias "sort" for "Sort-Object" can not be used with later versions of PowerShell on Linux (yes, with PowerShell 6 released in 2016 it runs on Linux).

If the output is needed in some particular format, e.g., rows in an HTML table:

    Get-Alias | select Name, Definition, DisplayName | sort Definition, Name | foreach { "<tr> <td>{0,1}</td> <td>{1,1}</td> </tr>" -f $_.Name, $_.Definition }

Interesting aliases

Some short aliases are:

1. % is an alias for ForEach-Object. ForEach-Object is also commonly known by another alias, foreach.
2. ? is an alias for Where-Object. Where-Object is also commonly known by another alias, where
3. h is an alias for Get-History. Another alias is ghy.
4. ps (like on Unix) is an alias for Get-Process.

List of aliases

Alias	Cmdlet
asnp	Add-PSSnapIn
clc	Clear-Content
clhy	Clear-History
clear	Clear-Host
cls	Clear-Host
cli	Clear-Item
clp	Clear-ItemProperty
clv	Clear-Variable
compare	Compare-Object
diff	Compare-Object
cnsn	Connect-PSSession
CFS	ConvertFrom-String
cvpa	Convert-Path
copy	Copy-Item
cp	Copy-Item
cpi	Copy-Item
cpp	Copy-ItemProperty
dbp	Disable-PSBreakpoint
dnsn	Disconnect-PSSession
ebp	Enable-PSBreakpoint
etsn	Enter-PSSession
exsn	Exit-PSSession
epal	Export-Alias
epcsv	Export-Csv
epsn	Export-PSSession
%	ForEach-Object
foreach	ForEach-Object
fc	Format-Custom
fhx	Format-Hex
fl	Format-List
ft	Format-Table
fw	Format-Wide
gal	Get-Alias
dir	Get-ChildItem
gci	Get-ChildItem
ls	Get-ChildItem
gcb	Get-Clipboard
gcm	Get-Command
gin	Get-ComputerInfo
cat	Get-Content
gc	Get-Content
type	Get-Content
ghy	Get-History
h	Get-History
history	Get-History
gi	Get-Item
gp	Get-ItemProperty
gpv	Get-ItemPropertyValue
gjb	Get-Job
gl	Get-Location
pwd	Get-Location
gm	Get-Member
gmo	Get-Module
gps	Get-Process
ps	Get-Process
gbp	Get-PSBreakpoint
gcs	Get-PSCallStack
gdr	Get-PSDrive
gsn	Get-PSSession
gsnp	Get-PSSnapIn
gsv	Get-Service
gtz	Get-TimeZone
gu	Get-Unique
gv	Get-Variable
gwmi	Get-WmiObject
group	Group-Object
man	help
ipal	Import-Alias
ipcsv	Import-Csv
ipmo	Import-Module
ipsn	Import-PSSession
icm	Invoke-Command
iex	Invoke-Expression
ihy	Invoke-History
r	Invoke-History
ii	Invoke-Item
irm	Invoke-RestMethod
curl	Invoke-WebRequest
iwr	Invoke-WebRequest
wget	Invoke-WebRequest
iwmi	Invoke-WMIMethod
measure	Measure-Object
md	mkdir
mi	Move-Item
move	Move-Item
mv	Move-Item
mp	Move-ItemProperty
nal	New-Alias
ni	New-Item
nmo	New-Module
mount	New-PSDrive
ndr	New-PSDrive
nsn	New-PSSession
npssc	New-PSSessionConfigurationFile
nv	New-Variable
ogv	Out-GridView
oh	Out-Host
lp	Out-Printer
popd	Pop-Location
ise	powershell_ise.exe
pushd	Push-Location
rcjb	Receive-Job
rcsn	Receive-PSSession
del	Remove-Item
erase	Remove-Item
rd	Remove-Item
ri	Remove-Item
rm	Remove-Item
rmdir	Remove-Item
rp	Remove-ItemProperty
rjb	Remove-Job
rmo	Remove-Module
rbp	Remove-PSBreakpoint
rdr	Remove-PSDrive
rsn	Remove-PSSession
rsnp	Remove-PSSnapin
rv	Remove-Variable
rwmi	Remove-WMIObject
ren	Rename-Item
rni	Rename-Item
rnp	Rename-ItemProperty
rvpa	Resolve-Path
rujb	Resume-Job
select	Select-Object
sls	Select-String
sal	Set-Alias
scb	Set-Clipboard
sc	Set-Content
si	Set-Item
sp	Set-ItemProperty
cd	Set-Location
chdir	Set-Location
sl	Set-Location
sbp	Set-PSBreakpoint
stz	Set-TimeZone
set	Set-Variable
sv	Set-Variable
swmi	Set-WMIInstance
shcm	Show-Command
sort	Sort-Object
sajb	Start-Job
saps	Start-Process
start	Start-Process
sasv	Start-Service
sleep	Start-Sleep
spjb	Stop-Job
kill	Stop-Process
spps	Stop-Process
spsv	Stop-Service
sujb	Suspend-Job
tee	Tee-Object
trcm	Trace-Command
wjb	Wait-Job
?	Where-Object
where	Where-Object
echo	Write-Output
write	Write-Output

Platform

This was tested on Windows 10 and PowerShell 5.1:

    $PSVersionTable.PSVersion

    Major  Minor  Build  Revision
    -----  -----  -----  -------- 
    5      1      18362  145