Alias (command)

The alias command is used to create aliases, and to get a list of aliased commands.

Aliases creation

The syntax is shell dependent:

B-Shell (sh, bash) and Z-Shell (zsh) :

alias l=ls
alias la='ls -A'

C-Shell (csh, tcsh) :

alias l ls
alias la 'ls -A'

Special functions

Some shells provide additional features, such as the -g argument of zsh's alias built-in command. This allow creation of global aliases :

> alias a=aaa
> alias -g b=bbb
> echo a b
a bbb

This can be very useful :

> alias -g ...='../..'
> pwd
/foo/bar/misc
> cd ...
> pwd
/foo

For more information on the specific options of your shell, check its man page.

Aliases consultation

You can use this to get a list of existing aliases:

> alias
...=../..
....=../../..
.....=../../../..
......=../../../../..
.......=../../../../../..
clean='rm -f `find . -name "*~" -o -name ".*~" -o -name ".*.core" -o -name "*.core" -o -name "#*#" -o -name "a.out"`
close='cdcontrol -f /dev/cd0 close'
eject='cdcontrol -f /dev/cd0 eject'
fr='export LANG=fr_FR.ISO8859-15'
la='ls -a'
ll='ls -Al'
ls='ls -FG'
> alias ls
ls='ls -FG'

See also: unalias, which