Is there any way to create bash like aliases in windows (powershell or cmd)?

Question

I want to create an alias that can still take input, like:

alias ytx='youtube-dl -ciw -f bestaudio --yes-playlist

Is this possible within windows?

I tried bash aliases equivalent for powershell? but it doesn't allow for input at the end.

Answer 1

The simplest approach, which works in any Windows version, is using common batch files, stored in a common folder available in your PATH.

For passing input to batch files, use %*, which evaluates to "all parameters passed to the batch file command line", or, use %1, %2, ... %9 to refer to individual parameters.

Personally, I keep my batch files in C:\Batch and place it in the begining of my PATH. When running the batch files, you could omit the .bat suffix, to get a similar look-and-feel to bash aliases.

Few examples of my own:

• s3cmd.bat, which contains: python c:\devtools\s3cmd-2.0.0\s3cmd %*. All parameters are passed directly to the actual s3cmd program.
• clangcheck.bat, which is a shorthand for: clang-check -analyze -extra-arg -Xclang -extra-arg -analyzer-output=text %*. Here, the batch parameters are passed along with extra arguments to clang-check.
• epoch_to_time.bat, which converts Unix epoch time to readable local time.
  It contains: perl -pe "s/([\d]{10})/localtime $1/eg;" %1. Here, %1 is the epoch time to convert, which is expected as a single parameter.

Answer 2

The equivalent command is the doskey command, which you may use as:

doskey ytx=youtube-dl -ciw -f bestaudio --yes-playlist $*

where $* represents all the parameters.

Here is a small example that echos its parameters:

Doskey can also be used in PowerShell. For more information see this answer.

For making a doskey macro persistent across sessions, see the post Create permanent DOSKEY in Windows cmd.