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GNU which for Windows: which.cmd

Posted by SkyLined on September 7th, 2009 in · 3 Comments

I’ve implemented GNU which as a batch script for Windows. GNU which is a utility that is used to find which executable (or alias or shell function) is executed when entered on the shell prompt. Which.cmd does a similar job for windows: it finds which application or script is executed when you execute a command. It works by going through the list of executable extension in the “%PATHEXT%” environment variable and then searches through the “%PATH%” environment variable for a file with the name you provide on the command line for each extension. When it finds a match, it is displayed, when it finds nothing, it reports an error.

Example:

C:\>which explorer
C:\Windows\explorer.exe
 
C:\>which cmd.exe
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
 
C:\>which nc
C:\Tools\nc.exe
 
C:\>which blablablabla
“blablablabla” not found
 

You can download the batch script here.

3 Comments to “GNU which for Windows: which.cmd”

  1. James Ross
    2009/09/07

    I found a small problem, which only occurs if the expanded path of a program includes parentheses (e.g. “Program Files (x86)”) – line 29 (IF…) balks at them. I fixed it by changing it to:
    IF “%~d$PATH:1″==”" (

    I also had to remove the ELSE and parentheses that followed, for the same reason.

    Apart from this hiccup, great script! It will forever be in my path.

  2. SkyLined
    2009/09/07

    Thank you for the feedback. I’ve implemented a fix that uses the “short name” to remove any parenthesis when checking the path as well as puts quotes around the path when it is ECHO-ed. This should fix the problem (I’ve tested it on my Vista x64):

    :FIND &:: Arguments = “name”
    IF “%~s$PATH:1″==”" (
    :: The name cannot be found in the PATH variable, return exit code 1
    EXIT /B 1
    ) ELSE (
    :: Found: print the full path and return exit code 0
    ECHO “%~$PATH:1″
    EXIT /B 0
    )

    I’ve update the download with these changes, you can download the script (again) from the link above to get the new version.

  3. MacTheFork
    2009/09/09

    Nice script, although on Vista and later they added the ‘where’ command which does the same thing :) Shame MS don’t publicise these things (or for that matter just called it ‘which’ although to be fair the name ‘where’ makes more sense).

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