Equivalent of *Nix 'which' command in PowerShell?

The very first alias I made once I started customizing my profile in PowerShell was 'which'.

New-Alias which get-command

To add this to your profile, type this:

"`nNew-Alias which get-command" | add-content $profile

The `n at the start of the last line is to ensure it will start as a new line.

I usually just type:

gcm notepad

or

gcm note*

gcm is the default alias for Get-Command.

On my system, gcm note* outputs:

[27] » gcm note*

CommandType     Name                                                     Definition
-----------     ----                                                     ----------
Application     notepad.exe                                              C:\WINDOWS\notepad.exe
Application     notepad.exe                                              C:\WINDOWS\system32\notepad.exe
Application     Notepad2.exe                                             C:\Utils\Notepad2.exe
Application     Notepad2.ini                                             C:\Utils\Notepad2.ini

You get the directory and the command that matches what you're looking for.

This seems to do what you want (I found it on http://huddledmasses.org/powershell-find-path/):

Function Find-Path($Path, [switch]$All = $false, [Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.TestPathType]$type = "Any")
## You could comment out the function stuff and use it as a script instead, with this line:
#param($Path, [switch]$All = $false, [Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.TestPathType]$type = "Any")
   if($(Test-Path $Path -Type $type)) {
      return $path
   } else {
      [string[]]$paths = @($pwd);
      $paths += "$pwd;$env:path".split(";")

      $paths = Join-Path $paths $(Split-Path $Path -leaf) | ? { Test-Path $_ -Type $type }
      if($paths.Length -gt 0) {
         if($All) {
            return $paths;
         } else {
            return $paths[0]
         }
      }
   }
   throw "Couldn't find a matching path of type $type"
}
Set-Alias find Find-Path

Check this PowerShell Which.

The code provided there suggests this:

($Env:Path).Split(";") | Get-ChildItem -filter notepad.exe

If you want a comamnd that both accepts input from pipeline or as paramater, you should try this:

function which($name) {
    if ($name) { $input = $name }
    Get-Command $input | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Path
}

copy-paste the command to your profile (notepad $profile).

Examples:

❯ echo clang.exe | which
C:\Program Files\LLVM\bin\clang.exe

❯ which clang.exe
C:\Program Files\LLVM\bin\clang.exe

You can install the which command from https://goprogram.co.uk/software/commands, along with all of the other UNIX commands.

If you have scoop you can install a direct clone of which:

scoop install which
which notepad

There also always the option of using which. there are actually three ways to access which from Windows powershell, the first (not necessarily the best) wsl -e which command (this requires installation of windows subsystem for Linux and a running distro). B. gnuwin32 which is a port of several gnu binaries in .exe format as standle alone bundled lanunchers option three, install msys2 (cross compiler platform) if you go where it installed in /usr/bin you'll find many many gnu utils that are more up-to-date. most of them work as stand alone exe and can be copied from the bin folder to your home drive somewhere amd added to your PATH.

There also always the option of using which. there are actually three ways to access which from Windows powershell

• The first, (though not the best) is wsl(windows subsystem for linux)

wsl -e which command 

This requires installation of windows subsystem for Linux and a running distro.

• Next is gnuwin32 which is a port of several gnu binaries in .exe format as standle alone bundled lanunchers

• Third, install msys2 (cross compiler platform) if you go where it installed in /usr/bin you'll find many many gnu utils that are more up-to-date. most of them work as stand alone exe and can be copied from the bin folder to your home drive somewhere amd added to your PATH.