TIP_alias

This article is part of the Tips & Tricks series.

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1 Alias, Setting command aliases
2 Gentoo Linux Aliases
3 Alias with variables
4 Another way for aliases with variables
5 Creating aliases on shell startup
6 Links

Alias, Setting command aliases

The alias command allows you to make new shortcuts and synonyms for commonly used commands. The basic usage is:

alias newcommand='yourcommand -arguments'

If you want to start aterm according to your preferences with the command term, do something like:

alias term='aterm -ls -fg gray -bg black'

If you want a quick alias like ll for a more informative file listing:

alias ll='ls -al --color=auto'

Starting alias without any options lists the current aliases:

Code: alias

alias ls='ll'
alias ls -al --color=auto
alias term='aterm -ls -fg gray -bg black'

Use unalias to remove an alias.

unalias term

You can also make aliases for existing commands. If you want ls to show colors by default, do:

alias ls='ls --color=auto'

These aliases can be put in your login script (~/.bash_profile or ~/.profile depending on what shell you are using).

Create verbose output:

alias cp="cp -v"
alias rm="rm -v"
alias mv="mv -v"

You can also add an (UNDOCUMENTED!) progress indicator to cp and mv (need to manually patch the files for this feature to work. Look at http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-460045.html?sid=fbc59e4c0cb42430ff5cbc7aaa506739 for help):

alias cp="cp -g"
alias mv="mv -g"

Note: The progress indicator will only show up if the file takes a certain amount of time to copy (about 4 seconds)

Note: this is pretty dangerous...:

-copy a large amount of file with cp -g so you can see the percentages

-some keyboard key can abort copying a file... but it still continue the overal copy process (pressing the up arow key i think)

=>so that can be problematic if the person using it doesn't know about it (for example in my case using a tty and dmps (the screen goes black after a moment)... so you have the reflex to press an arow key... now i do alt+Fsomething)

Or both at once:

alias cp="cp -vg"
alias mv="mv -vg"

Aliases with switches:

alias 'rm -rf'="rm -rfv"

Bypass an alias temporarily:

alias rm="rm -i" # here we create an alias to force interactive mode
\rm              # but to temporarily bypass that alias, we preceed the command with a \

Clear the screen when you logout:

alias logout="clear && logout"

Color grepping!

export GREP_COLOR=31
alias grep='grep --color=auto' # alternatively export GREP_OPTIONS='--color=auto'

Show the process name when pgrep'in:

alias pgrep="pgrep -l"

Color less and more:

alias less="less -r"
alias more="less -r"  # less is more :)

Exclude comments from config files:

alias nocomment='sed -e '\s/#.*//;/^\s*$/d'\ '
nocomment /etc/ntp.conf|less

Gentoo Linux Aliases

Emerge with distcc enabled:

alias demerge='FEATURES="distcc" PATH="/usr/lib/distcc/bin:${PATH}" emerge'

Display current $PATH variable:

alias path='echo $PATH'

Other alias-ideas for speedy typing:

alias em='LINGUAS="en ru de fr ja zh_CN" emerge'
alias es='em -s'
alias eS='em -S'
alias emo='em --oneshot'
alias ep='em -pv'
alias epw='em -pUDv world'
alias esy='emerge --sync'
alias eu='emerge --unmerge'
alias euw='em -UDv world'
alias neuw='LINGUAS="en ru de fr ja zh_CN" nice -n 15 emerge -UDv world'
alias ackw='ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86"'

using ACCEPT_KEYWORDS is DEPRECATED see TIP Dealing with masked packages ---

alias emunmask="echo '$@' >> /etc/portage/package.keywords"
alias emuse="echo '$@' >> /etc/portage/package.use"
Use :
 # emunmask sys-kernel/gentoo-sources
 # emuse dev-util/anjuta glade

More aliases:

alias h='history'
alias j='jobs'
alias less='less -r'
alias more='less -r'
alias whois='jwhois'
alias du='du -h'
alias dux='du / 2>/dev/null | egrep "[0-9]([0-9]{2}M|G)"'
alias su-='su -'

Fast directory switch:

OLDPWD='/etc'
OLDPWD1='/root'
OLDPWD2='/home'
OLDPWD3='/'
OLDPWD4='/'
alias cd='OLDPWD5=$OLDPWD4; OLDPWD4=$OLDPWD3; OLDPWD3=$OLDPWD2; OLDPWD2=$OLDPWD1; OLDPWD1=$OLDPWD; cd'
alias cd1='cd $OLDPWD1'
alias cd2='cd $OLDPWD2'
alias cd3='cd $OLDPWD3'
alias cd4='cd $OLDPWD4'
alias cd5='cd $OLDPWD5'
alias pwd='echo " cd1: $OLDPWD"; echo " cd2: $OLDPWD1"; echo " cd3: $OLDPWD2"; echo " cd4: $OLDPWD3"; echo " cd5: $OLDPWD4"; echo -e '\\033[0;30;42m pwd: '\$PWD'\ \033[00m'\;'

Typo-correction:

alias cd...='cd ../..'
alias cd..='cd ..'
alias cd.='cd .'
alias cd~='cd ~'
alias ...='cd ../..'
alias ..='cd ..'
alias ~='cd ~'

More complex alias and a similar version with a function:

alias psox='echo ps ax -Ho pid,ppid,%cpu,%mem,stat,euser,egroup,tname,start_time,ni,priority,command; /bin/ps ax -Ho pid,ppid,%cpu,%mem,stat,euser,egroup,tname,start_time,ni,priority,command'
function pso { if [ "$*" = "" ]; then COL="--width=$COLUMNS"; else COL="$*"; fi; echo "ps ax -o pid,ppid,%cpu,%mem,stat,euser,egroup,tname,start_time,ni,priority,command -H $COL| awk '{if (\$2"'!'"=lpid && \$12!~dummy && \$12"'!'"~\"(^hald-[ar])|(kdeinit)|(agetty)|(dbus)|(awk)\" && \$13"'!'"~\"(kdeinit)|(ksmserver)|(startkde)|(ax)\"){ print \$0}; dummy=\$12; if (\$2"'!'"=lpid) {lpid=0}; if (\$12~\"(spamd)|(postfix)|(kdm)\" || \$2==0){lpid=\$1}}'"; /bin/ps ax -o pid,ppid,%cpu,%mem,stat,euser,egroup,tname,start_time,ni,priority,command -H $COL | awk '{if ($2!=lpid && $12!~dummy && $12!~"(^hald-[ar])|(kdeinit)|(agetty)|(dbus)|(awk)" && $13!~"(kdeinit)|(ksmserver)|(startkde)|(ax)"){ print $0}; dummy=$12; if ($2!=lpid) {lpid=0}; if ($12~"(spamd)|(postfix)|(kdm)" || $2==0){lpid=$1}}' ; }

So an update is now:

esy && euw -a

Alias with variables

You can not make aliases with variables. But you can make functions, having a function in your ~/.bashrc will work just like an alias. To use ssh to copy files to a location on a server you can use:

sendpic () { scp "$@" mina@foo.bar.ca:/www/misc/Pictures/; }

Another way for aliases with variables

If you dont like to use a function, if you need variables, try the following to change to the last working directory:

alias cdo="cd \"\$OLDPWD\""

Note: It is important that there are ONLY double quotes in the expression above, no single quotes like in the other examples!

Note: This should only be taken as an example, because the same thing can be accomplished with cd -.

Creating aliases on shell startup

You can have your aliases created anytime you open an instance of a shell. If you are using bash, edit your ~/.bashrc file and add one alias per line. Once you save and close the file, run this to load your new aliases immediately:

source ~/.bashrc

Otherwise, the new aliases will load whenever you open a new instance of the shell.

Another place to put your aliases if you want them to be system-wide for all users is in /etc/bashrc. To load those aliases, add this line to ~/.bashrc:

File: ~/.bashrc

source /etc/bashrc

or equivalently:

. /etc/bashrc

Another approach. Create an /etc/aliasrc file, and at the top add these lines:

File: /etc/aliasrc

# remove all old aliases  
unalias -a
# reload aliases
alias realias='source /etc/aliasrc'  
# edit aliases  
alias vialias='$EDITOR /etc/aliasrc && realias'

Now add this to the bottom of your ~/.bashrc:

File: ~/.bashrc

source /etc/aliasrc

Gentoo Wiki

TIP_alias

Contents

Alias, Setting command aliases

Gentoo Linux Aliases

Alias with variables

Another way for aliases with variables

Creating aliases on shell startup

Links