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:- % is an alias for ForEach-Object. ForEach-Object is also commonly known by another alias, foreach.
- ? is an alias for Where-Object. Where-Object is also commonly known by another alias, where
- h is an alias for Get-History. Another alias is ghy.
- 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
