Make your life easy & productive with alias in Linux

When I worked first time with Linux (Ubuntu), I use to remember lot of commands required for my project. In order to make myself productive I started creating either a text file called help.txt or create a notes in OneNote to save all those commands. So when ever I need a command I use to copy the command from my help.txt file and use Ctrl + Shift + v to paste on my terminal and go on.

One day I had been to Linux training where I observes that, to list the file the trainer was executing ls command, but the output of ls was ls -la. I was totally confused and thought that he might be using some third party ls (As a new bee in Linux world, I assumed that trainer might have done sudo apt-get install third-party-ls or some thing similar).

First and foremost his personal PC was also a Linux (Ubuntu distro). The most curious thing which I found was he installed some software in front of me using please install some-software. I had gone mad and without holding my curiosity I asked trainer that how come your system has please instead of sudo. He replied that he is alias sudo to please. Then I nodded my head like as if I know alias and kept quite. Then I searched on internet and found the power of alias and from that day onwards I become a fan of alias.

Keeping all the story aside let see what is alias.** In simple alias is a custom name that we can give to any command/commands.**

Example

With out alias

bhavith@DESKTOP-M98L7FO:/mnt/e/Learning$ ls
'Mastering Embedded Linux Programming - Second Edition.pdf'   a.out   lambda.cpp   learning_cmake.pdf
bhavith@DESKTOP-M98L7FO:/mnt/e/Learning$

With alias

bhavith@DESKTOP-M98L7FO:/mnt/e/Learning$ alias ls="ls -la"
bhavith@DESKTOP-M98L7FO:/mnt/e/Learning$ ls
total 6584
drwxrwxrwx 1 bhavith bhavith    4096 Mar  1 22:56  .
drwxrwxrwx 1 bhavith bhavith    4096 Mar  2 00:09  ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 bhavith bhavith 6184516 Dec 10 21:05 'Mastering Embedded Linux Programming - Second Edition.pdf'
-rwxrwxrwx 1 bhavith bhavith   20976 Mar  1 22:56  a.out
-rwxrwxrwx 1 bhavith bhavith    3257 Mar  1 22:57  lambda.cpp
-rwxrwxrwx 1 bhavith bhavith  525865 Dec 10 19:22  learning_cmake.pdf
bhavith@DESKTOP-M98L7FO:/mnt/e/Learning$

How to make alias for multiple commands at once

To alias multiple commands use function of bash script

Example

bhavith@DESKTOP-M98L7FO:/mnt/e/Learning$ echo "function setupMyWorkspace()
> {
>     echo "Setting up the workspace"
>     mkdir myworkspace
>     cd myworkspace
>     touch readme.md
>     echo "Workspace created"
> }" > myalias.sh
bhavith@DESKTOP-M98L7FO:/mnt/e/Learning$ source myalias.sh
bhavith@DESKTOP-M98L7FO:/mnt/e/Learning$ setupMyWorkspace
Setting up the workspace
Workspace created
bhavith@DESKTOP-M98L7FO:/mnt/e/Learning/myworkspace$

Explanation:

• Create a function setupMyWorkspace and save it in a file called myalias.sh
• Source myalias.sh to make this function visible (expose) to running terminal
• Execute your new command setupMyWorkspace you are done

What will happen to my commands if terminal closed ?

If you close your terminal then all the alias created will be removed. Again you have to create new alias for one line commands and source myalias.sh to use setupMyWorkspace command.

But don’t worry there is way to make your commands available once terminal is opened. The way is paste all your commands to the end of ~/.bashrc file so that every time you open the new terminal all your alias present for you. beautiful right ?

Also you can paste your commands in ~/.bash_profile But I don’t recommend to do so. To understand the difference between ~/.bashrc and ~/.bashprofile refer .bashrc Vs .bash_profile blog

Tips:

• If you are using bash save your alias in ~/.bashrc and if you are using zsh (Z shell) save in ~/.zshrc
• If ~/.bashrc (commonly called as rc files) is not present no worry nothing will happen, just create one
• To know which shell are you using execute echo ${SHELL} then you know which shell is currently you are using example

bhavith@DESKTOP-M98L7FO:/mnt/e/Learning/myworkspace$ echo ${SHELL}
/bin/bash
bhavith@DESKTOP-M98L7FO:/mnt/e/Learning/myworkspace$

Enough is enough please provide your alias 🙂

Always try to understand or use your senior’s .bashrc or .vimrc (For vim). I know many of them disagree to provide one, as if there is a rocket science in it. Don’t worry I have pasted some snippet for reference to understand how really we can use alias to make our life easy and productive

Below is my simple alias snippet

alias ev="vim ~/.vimrc"     #Edit .vimrc
alias eb="vim ~/.bashrc"    #Edit .bashrc 
alias rc="source ~/.bashrc" #Source .bashrc

# Git aliases 
alias gdns="git diff --ignore-submodules=dirty"
alias gco="git checkout"
alias gs="git status"
alias gd="git diff"
alias edit_cscope_vim="vim ~/.vim/plugin/cscope_maps.vim"
alias tr="tree -L "


# Multiple command aliases using functions

#Extract iso image
function extract_img()
{
    source_file=$1
    dest_file=$(echo $(basename $1) | cut -f 1 -d '.')
    dest_gz=$dest_file".gz"
    out=$dest_file"_out"
    
    echo "Extracing $1 please wait ..."
    cp $source_file $dest_gz
    gunzip $dest_gz
    rm -rf $out;mkdir $out
    cd $out
    echo "Uncompressing $dest_file ..."
    cpio -i <../$dest_file
    echo "Find the uncompressed image in $out"
    cd ../
    rm -f $dest_file
}

# Prepare CSCOPE (It also prepare for CTAGS)
function pcs()
{
    echo "Cscope setup started ..."
    find $(pwd) -name "*.c" -o -name "*.h" > $(pwd)/cscope.files
    cd $(pwd)
    cscope -b
    #ctags too
    ctags -R
    CSCOPE_DB=$(pwd)/cscope.out;export CSCOPE_DB
    echo "Cscope setup is finished !"
}

# Clean ctags and cscope
function ccs()
{
    echo "Cleaning cscope ..."
    echo "Executing rm cscope.files cscope.out"
    rm cscope.files cscope.out
    echo "Cscope cleaned !"
}