'man' should be removed as an alias on Windows installations

Summary of the new feature / enhancement

The man alias on Windows is not needed and adds confusion when using PowerShell with multiple operating systems.

On Windows

PS> get-command man

CommandType     Name                                               Version    Source
-----------     ----                                               -------    ------
Alias           man -> help

On Linux

PS> get-command man

CommandType     Name                                               Version    Source
-----------     ----                                               -------    ------
Application     man                                                0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/man

So depending on the system you are using they return completely different information.

On Linux

PS> man pwsh
PWSH(1)                                                                                                       PWSH(1)

NAME
       pwsh - PowerShell command-line shell and .NET REPL

SYNOPSIS
       pwsh  [-NoLogo]  [-NoExit]  [-NoProfile]  [-NonInteractive] [-InputFormat {Text | XML}] [-OutputFormat {Text |
       XML}] [-EncodedCommand Base64EncodedCommand] [-File filePath args] [-ExecutionPolicy  ExecutionPolicy]  [-Com‐
       mand { - | script-block [-args arg-array] | string [CommandParameters] } ]

DESCRIPTION
       PowerShell  is  an automation and configuration management platform. It consists of a cross-platform (Windows,
       Linux and macOS) command-line shell and associated scripting language.

But on Windows,

PS> man pwsh
Get-Help:
Line |
  64 |      $help = Get-Help @PSBoundParameters
     |              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     | Get-Help could not find pwsh in a help file in this session. To download updated help topics type: "Update-Help". To get help online, search for the help topic in the TechNet library at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107116.

man as a command has no historical lineage on Windows except for with Unix/shell emulators. help does, and even existed in MSDOS commmand.com.

Having man as an alias does not “make PowerShell like bash” because it returns completely different information.

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

Remove the ‘man’ alias on windows installations.

[mklement0]

Pragmatically speaking, you can put the following in your $PROFILE to also get Unix man behavior on Windows - assuming WSL is installed:

Remove-Alias man; function man { wsl -e man $args }

I was never a fan of aliases named for other platforms’ utilities / other shells’ built-in commands, but to me the only compelling reason to take an existing alias away is if it shadows a standard utility on a given platform - and even that can be problematic, especially if no PowerShell-native alternative exists (for an infamous case where that happened, see the sc / sc.exe fiasco; I advocated for removal at the time, which I regret in hindsight, given that Set-Content now has no built-in alias)

While I understand the cross-platform argument, it’s important to note that there are plenty of Windows-only users, and the potential confusion doesn’t apply to them; they may have come to value this alias (and @kborowinski seems to value it even as a cross-platform user).

Note that man is only one of quite a few aliases that are Windows-only:

# Run on Windows with WSL and a nested PowerShell version installed
$windowsAliases = pwsh -noprofile { (Get-Alias).Name }
$unixAliases = wsl -e bash -ic 'pwsh -noprofile -c ''(Get-Alias).Name'''
Compare-Object $windowsAliases $unixAliases

Output:

InputObject SideIndicator
----------- -------------
ac          <=
cat         <=
clear       <=
cnsn        <=
compare     <=
cp          <=
cpp         <=
diff        <=
dnsn        <=
gsv         <=
kill        <=
ls          <=
man         <=
mount       <=
mv          <=
ogv         <=
ps          <=
rm          <=
rmdir       <=
sasv        <=
shcm        <=
sleep       <=
sort        <=
spsv        <=
start       <=
tee         <=
write       <=

[rhubarb-geek-nz]

This discussion has been useful.