HACKER Q&A
📣 LoveGracePeace

Do you use the bash alias feature much?


I tend to forget aliases I've set up and mostly use Ctrl+R to reverse search history and find the command I want if I've used it before. Either that or "history | grep " if it was some time in the past. Aliases just don't stick in my memory.

  👤 eulers_secret Accepted Answer ✓
I don't, because I SSH into a lot of machines - many are systems I don't own so can't really change things on. Or they'll be re-imaged in a day anyways.

I almost always prefer to use what's available by default, that way what I memorize works anywhere.

👤 dredmorbius
Somewhat less with time, as bash functions are preferred and more powerful handle arguments, multi-step processing, logic).

But yes, for basic arguments, particularly for ls:

  alias ls='ls -F'
  alias la='ls -A'
  alias ll='ls -l'
Occasionally for other commands for which the default is not ideal. w3m, for example, will read the bookmarks file if URL is passed, with '-B', but otherwise exits with an error, which is annoying.

  alias w3m='w3m -B'
Git commands, as others note.
👤 rurban
Yes. And I've setup a big .bash_alias to be scp'd to my machines.

functions only for the complicated parts. about the same number of bash aliases as .gitconfig aliases.

👤 gigatexal
I mostly use functions not aliases but I’m not that much of a power user.
👤 flaburgan
I'm using them a lot for git. I have aliases for all the git commands.
👤 twangist
> Aliases just don't stick in my memory.

`$ alias` will show you your aliases, and it's a pretty easy command to remember ;)

👤 cpc26
cat .bash_aliases | wc -l

      61
but yes alias command when I need to work on a system I aliased prior and have not used...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_span

👤 db48x
Sometimes. My favorite is alias primetime='watch -t -n 1 "factor \$(date +%s)"'