Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

Visiting aliases

An alias is basically a shortcut that takes the place of typing a long-command sequence. In this recipe, we will see how to create aliases using the alias command.

How to do it...

There are various operations you can perform on aliases, these are as follows:

1. An alias can be created as follows:

   $ alias new_command='command sequence'
   

   Giving a shortcut to the install command, apt-get install, can be done as follows:

   $ alias install='sudo apt-get install'
   

   Therefore, we can use install pidgin instead of sudo apt-get install pidgin.

2. The alias command is temporary; aliasing exists until we close the current terminal only. To keep these shortcuts permanent, add this statement to the ~/.bashrc file. Commands in ~/.bashrc are always executed ...