PowerShell alias syntax for running a cmd.exe builtin function?

Question

As I have only recently switched to PowerShell from cmd.exe, I often find it convenient to do little things in a familiar way by calling cmd to do them. For instance, to do a 'bare' file listing this works great:

PS> cmd /c dir /b
dir1
dir2
file1.txt

I'd like to make an alias for this but I can't figure out the right syntax. So far I've tried:

PS> Set-Alias dirb cmd /c dir /b        # error (alias not created)
PS> Set-Alias dirb "cmd /c dir /b"      # fail (alias doesn't work)
PS> Set-Alias dirb "cmd `"/c dir /b`""  # fail (alias doesn't work)

Any suggestions? I'm looking for a general solution to calling builtin cmd.exe commands (such as dir). I'd also like to know how to produce bare output the right way using PowerShell cmdlets, but that's a secondary concern at the moment. This question is about the proper syntax for calling cmd.exe from an alias.

Answer 1

I believe what you want is a function, not an alias. For instance:

  function dirb {
    cmd /c dir $args[0] /b
     }

From a PS prompt, run notepad $profile, paste that into your profile and then it will load automatically when you open a PS console and you can do this:

dirb c:\somedir

See get-help about_functions for more information about functions.

Answer 2

Aliases are not designed for this kind of tasks. An alias is just another name of a command. Use the function instead.

function dirb { cmd /c dir /b }

Answer 3

Aliases in powershell don't take parameters unfortunately - you need to define a function for this. For more info,

get-help aliases

Answer 4

Why on earth would you use powershell to open the command prompt? That seems to be defeating the purpose.

The Alias I prefer to list out files is simply ls