[trainee@easterton ~]$ man ls
Manual page displayed here
[trainee@easterton ~]$ woman ls
-bash: woman: command not found
[trainee@easterton ~]$ alias woman=man
[trainee@easterton ~]$ woman ls
Manual page displayed here
[trainee@easterton ~]$
OK - I'll admit that this is quite a trivial use of the "alias" command which (if your running the default 'bash' shell) lets you rename commands - replacing longer names with shorter ones, and adding in some default options too. Here's an example of that, where I am adding the
-F option to all my
ls commands, as I would like a trailing @ * or / to indicate a link, executable or directory on my listing:
Dorothy-2:nov09 grahamellis$ ls
LinuxAdmin.book.pdf
LinuxBasicsAdmin.book.pdf
chamber.org.uk.tgz
no_50.rtf
notes
phpvna
pics
try
Dorothy-2:nov09 grahamellis$ alias ls='ls -F'
Dorothy-2:nov09 grahamellis$ ls
LinuxAdmin.book.pdf
LinuxBasicsAdmin.book.pdf
chamber.org.uk.tgz
no_50.rtf
notes
phpvna
pics/
try/
Dorothy-2:nov09 grahamellis$
alias commands remain active only for the life of the current shell - type them in at the command line, and they'll not be transferred to any new windows. And you'll loose them completely when you log out or close the window in which you have set them. If you want to make them permanent, edit them into your
.bashrc file - that's the file that's read every time you start a new shell.
oh .. ".bashrc" => "Bourne Again Shell Runtime Commands" if you wondered!
(written 2009-11-06, updated 2009-11-07)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
A101 - Web Application Deployment - Linux -An Introduction For Users [73] vi - full circle - (2004-10-04)
[74] pushd and popd - (2004-10-05)
[152] Aladdin, or careful what you wish. - (2004-12-15)
[249] An easy way out - (2005-03-17)
[430] Linux commands - some basics - (2005-08-31)
[431] File permissions of Linux and Unix systems - (2005-08-31)
[593] Finding where the disc space has gone - (2006-02-06)
[659] Web Application Components - (2006-03-28)
[679] More or less on the edge of the page - (2006-04-11)
[703] Copying files and preserving ownership - (2006-04-28)
[710] Linux training Glasgow, Python programming course Dundee - (2006-05-05)
[711] THE home directory or MY home directory - (2006-05-06)
[749] Cottage industry or production line data handling methods - (2006-06-07)
[984] Cardinal numbers and magic numbers - (2006-12-14)
[1012] Moving files between Windows / DOS and Linux / Unix - (2006-12-30)
[1013] Copy multiple files - confusing error message from cp - (2006-12-30)
[1068] ls -l report, Linux / Unix - types and permssions - (2007-02-06)
[1259] Where am I and how did I get here? - (2007-07-05)
[1287] Work and play at Well House Manor - Football and Shell Shortcuts - (2007-08-02)
[1288] Linux run states, shell special commands, and directory structures - (2007-08-03)
[1366] awk - a powerful data extraction and manipulation tool - (2007-09-25)
[1408] Wireless hotel tips - FTP and Skype connections failing - (2007-10-26)
[1438] Copy and paste / cut and paste and other vi techniques - (2007-11-20)
[1527] Selecting file names in a shell - one word or another - (2008-02-02)
[1651] ls command - favourite options - (2008-05-23)
[1764] Yank and Push - copy and move in vi - (2008-08-21)
[1803] FTP passive mode - a sometimes cure for upload hangs - (2008-09-20)
[1893] Some Linux and Unix tips - (2008-11-18)
[1897] Keeping on an even keel - (2008-11-21)
[1902] sstrwxrwxrwx - Unix and Linux file permissions - (2008-11-23)
[1904] Ruby, Perl, Linux, MySQL - some training notes - (2008-11-23)
[2201] Running straight from the jar, but not from a tar - (2009-05-26)
[2203] Always use su with minus. And where do programs come from? - (2009-05-27)
[2299] How much space does my directory take - Linux - (2009-07-20)
[2300] What does x on a linux directory mean? - (2009-07-21)
[2479] Accidentally typed ci rather than vi? - (2009-10-27)
[2636] Linux - useful tips including history and file name completion - (2010-02-15)
[2831] Recording (a macro) in vi - (2010-06-27)
[3179] Oops - I typed ci not vi, and have lost my file ... - (2011-02-21)
[3256] Displaying a directory or file system tree - Linux - (2011-04-22)
[3791] The Kernel, Shells and Daemons. Greek Gods in computing - (2012-07-01)
[3819] Packing a tar, jar or war file - best practise - (2012-07-26)
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