Alias (command) - Alternatives

Alternatives

Aliases should usually be kept simple. Where it would not be simple, the recommendation is usually to use one of the following:

• Shell scripts, which essentially provide the full ability to create new system commands.

• Symbolic links, either in /usr/local/bin if for all users, or in a user's $HOME/bin directory if for personal use. This method is useful for providing an additional way of calling the command, and in some cases may allow access to a buried command function for the small number of commands that use their invocation name to select the mode of operation.

• Shell functions, especially if the command being created needs to modify the internal runtime environment of the shell itself (such as environment variables), needs to change the shell's current working directory, or must be implemented in a way which guarantees they it appear in the command search path for anything but an interactive shell (especially any "safer" version of rm, cp, mv and so forth).

The most common form of aliases, which just add a few options to a command and then include the rest of the command line, can be converted easily to shell functions following this pattern:

alias ll='ls -Flas' # long listing, alias ll { ls -Flas "$@" ; } # long listing, function

To make ls itself a function (note that "command ls" is Bash-specific, and that older Bourne shells would have used "/bin/ls" instead):

ls { command ls --color=auto "$@" ; }