PowerShell vs Bash in Examples

powershell-vs-bash.md

PowerShell vs Bash in Examples

Key different points

• Bash commands output strings while PS commands output objects!

Examples

The following standard aliases in PowerShell are used:

• dir -> Get-ChildItem
• sls -> Select-String
• cat -> Get-Content
• rm -> Remove-Item
• cp -> Copy-Item
• select -> Select-Object
• ? -> Where-Object
• % -> ForEach-Object

Search in files

Bash

find 'dir' -type f -name '*.txt' -exec grep -n 'pattern' '{}' +

PowerShell

dir 'dir\*.txt' -Recurse | sls 'pattern'

Find out files that do not contain a pattern

Bash

find 'dir' -type f -name '*.txt' ! \( -exec grep -q 'pattern' '{}' \; \) -print

PowerShell

dir 'dir\*.txt' -Recurse | ?{ !(sls -Quiet -Path $_ -Pattern 'pattern') }

Find and delete files

Bash

find 'dir' -name '*.txt' -delete

PowerShell

dir 'dir\*.txt' -Recurse | rm

View first/last n lines of a file

Bash

head 'file'
tail 'file'

PowerShell

cat 'file' -Head 10
cat 'file' -Tail 10

View first/last n lines/objects from pipeline

Bash

... | head
... | tail

PowerShell

... | select -First 10
... | select -Last 10

Find command

Bash

type -a 'command'

PowerShell

Get-Command -all 'command'

Grep

Bash

<command write to stdout> | grep 'pattern'

PowerShell

<command write to stdout> | oss | sls 'pattern'