从 PowerShell 中，如何解析可执行文件的位置？

Question

On many occasions I have needed a path to an executable or command line tool, for example: notepad or kubectl . Whilst using PowerShell, the executable is available, but the physical location of the file has not always been easy to find.

One way is to search every folder on the PATH, or even worse the system ( gci -r | % { $_ ...} ), but this is not the most efficient use of time, to re-code every time. Is there a better way?

Answer 1

Get-Command will return an object that contains several fields with the pathname. For example, if I type Get-Command notepad on my system, I get

PS Z:\> Get-Command notepad

CommandType     Name                                               Version    Source
-----------     ----                                               -------    ------
Application     notepad.exe                                        10.0.18... C:\WINDOWS\system32\notepad.exe

and if I type Get-Command notepad | Select-Object * Get-Command notepad | Select-Object * I will get

PS Z:\> Get-Command notepad | Select-Object *                               
                                                                            
                                                                            
HelpUri            :                                                        
FileVersionInfo    : File:             C:\WINDOWS\system32\notepad.exe      
                     InternalName:     Notepad                              
                     OriginalFilename: NOTEPAD.EXE.MUI                      
                     FileVersion:      10.0.18362.1 (WinBuild.160101.0800)  
                     FileDescription:  Notepad                              
                     Product:          Microsoft® Windows® Operating System 
                     ProductVersion:   10.0.18362.1                         
                     Debug:            False                                
                     Patched:          False                                
                     PreRelease:       False                                
                     PrivateBuild:     False                                
                     SpecialBuild:     False                                
                     Language:         English (United States)              
                                                                            
Path               : C:\WINDOWS\system32\notepad.exe                        
Extension          : .exe                                                   
Definition         : C:\WINDOWS\system32\notepad.exe                        
Source             : C:\WINDOWS\system32\notepad.exe                        
Version            : 10.0.18362.1316                                        
Visibility         : Public                                                 
OutputType         : {System.String}                                        
Name               : notepad.exe                                            
CommandType        : Application                                            
ModuleName         :                                                        
Module             :                                                        
RemotingCapability : PowerShell                                             
Parameters         :                                                        
ParameterSets      :                                                        
                                                                            

Answer 2

I recently discovered Where.exe is available to PowerShell.

> Where.exe kubectl
C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker\resources\bin\kubectl.exe

This is compatible with PowerShell variables so can be used whilst scripting: $path = where.exe notepad