Aliases with non-deterministic arguments
Aliases are really useful, but they have certain limitations. Namely, they can't accommodate things that change from execution to execution. These things include commit messages, file names, specific flags, etc. This script offers a way to create 'aliases' with more complex arguments.
$ git clone https://github.com/patrickleweryharris/complex-alias.git
$ cd complex-alias
$ ./install.sh
Make sure to add ~/.complex-alias to your path
$ complex-alias <name> <command> [flag]
Complex-alias works by creating a script under name that executes command with arguments
Let's go through an example.
Say you want to create an alias that lets you cd into a directory and then do ls.
Using complex-alias, you would do the following:
$ complex-alias cdl "cd %1 && ls" -e
Where arguments are denoted by a % and a number (% is used because $ causes
problems in bash). The argument numbers must start from 1. The -e flag is used
if you want to evaluate a new shell in the alias (i.e. it runs exec $SHELL
after the command). This flag is useful in this case because we want to stay in
the directory that we cd into.
Running this command will produce a shell script called cdl in the ~/.complex-alias directory
with the following contents:
#!/bin/bash
function execute(){
cd $1 && ls
exec /bin/zsh
}
execute $1
Where /bin/zsh will be replaced with whatever shell you are currently using.
Which can be called via:
$ cdl <dir>
PRs accepted.
Small note: If editing the Readme, please conform to the standard-readme specification.
MIT © Patrick Harris