Is there an equivalent of 'which' on the Windows command line?

Question

As I sometimes have path problems, where one of my own cmd scripts is hidden (shadowed) by another program (earlier on the path), I would like to be able to find the full pa

Answer 1

While later versions of Windows have a where command, you can also do this with Windows XP by using the environment variable modifiers, as follows:

c:\> for %i in (cmd.exe) do @echo.   %~$PATH:i
   C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe

c:\> for %i in (python.exe) do @echo.   %~$PATH:i
   C:\Python25\python.exe

You don't need any extra tools and it's not limited to PATH since you can substitute any environment variable (in the path format, of course) that you wish to use.

---

And, if you want one that can handle all the extensions in PATHEXT (as Windows itself does), this one does the trick:

@echo off
setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion

:: Needs an argument.

if "x%1"=="x" (
    echo Usage: which ^
    goto :end
)

:: First try the unadorned filenmame.

set fullspec=
call :find_it %1

:: Then try all adorned filenames in order.

set mypathext=!pathext!
:loop1
    :: Stop if found or out of extensions.

    if "x!mypathext!"=="x" goto :loop1end

    :: Get the next extension and try it.

    for /f "delims=;" %%j in ("!mypathext!") do set myext=%%j
    call :find_it %1!myext!

:: Remove the extension (not overly efficient but it works).

:loop2
    if not "x!myext!"=="x" (
        set myext=!myext:~1!
        set mypathext=!mypathext:~1!
        goto :loop2
    )
    if not "x!mypathext!"=="x" set mypathext=!mypathext:~1!

    goto :loop1
:loop1end

:end
endlocal
goto :eof

:: Function to find and print a file in the path.

:find_it
    for %%i in (%1) do set fullspec=%%~$PATH:i
    if not "x!fullspec!"=="x" @echo.   !fullspec!
    goto :eof

It actually returns all possibilities but you can tweak it quite easily for specific search rules.