This works in command prompt:
where Java
In PowerShell where is an alias for Where-Object. I tried to stop parsing:
--% where Java
This does not work, also tried storing as a variable:
$StopParser = "--%"
$StopParser where Java
This returns the error: 'Unexpected token 'where' in expression or statement'.
How can I use the where command in PowerShell?
This isn't a question of parsing, but of command origins. The where cmd command is an executable in System32 that searches your current directory and the PATH environment variable for a pattern:
WHERE Java
is equivalent to:
cmd.exe /C where.exe Java
The link I provided shows an equivalent command for powershell:
(Get-Command -Name $file).Definition
or you can alternatively call the executable the same way:
where.exe Java
For quite a few cmd tools, this is the same paradigm: an executable in System32.
COPY and DIR are internal in the sense that they are code within cmd.exe]; it's implemented as C:\Windows\System32\where.exe. It can be invoked from within PowerShell as where.exe, explicitly including the file extension to override the internal alias.
WHERE Java isn't quite the same as cmd.exe /C where.exe Java, although the practical effect/output is the same. (They're not precisely equivalent because you're spinning up a copy [unnecessarily] of cmd.exe.) It's more accurate to say that WHERE Java is equivalent to where.exe Java (as you note at the end of your answer).