On Thu, 3 Oct 2019 at 02:39, Lee <ler...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 10/2/19, Greg Wooledge <wool...@eeg.ccf.org> wrote:
>> This is what shell functions are for. You can just drop the shell >> functions into your ~/.bashrc and then use them in every interactive >> shell thenceforth. >> I strongly recommend this approach over the aliases that were previously >> suggested, by the way. Functions are so much cleaner. > How are functions cleaner? > I've been using aliases for I don't know how long and haven't noticed > any problems: > what am I missing? Seeing as this is a FAQ, I hope it's not impolite for me to respectfully chip-in with some links in reply: https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide/CommandsAndArguments#Aliases https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide/CommandsAndArguments#Functions http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/080 https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide/CompoundCommands#Functions I understand "cleaner" to mean that functions take arguments, so they work in a way that is more intuitive and robust. One mechanism (alias) is a leading-text substitution, the other (function) is a programming language. Use what meets your needs, with aware of limitations and alternatives. aliases have an easy user interface. 'man bash' says: For almost every purpose, aliases are superseded by shell functions. I hope this is a useful response, apologies if you knew all this already.
