topic Re: alias command in Operating System - HP-UX

alias command

MikeL_4 — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 09:26:07 GMT

When using the alias command for setting in .profile, is there a way to display the command thats going to be executed instead of executing it right away ?

Re: alias command

Geoff Wild — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 09:28:38 GMT

Not too sure if I know what you want - but if you just enter:

alias

it will tell you all the aliases configured...

Example:

# alias
autoload='typeset -fu'
command='command '
date=/bin/date
functions='typeset -f'
history='fc -l'
integer='typeset -i'
local=typeset
nohup='nohup '
r='fc -e -'
stop='kill -STOP'
suspend='kill -STOP $$'
type='whence -v'

Rgds...Geoff

Re: alias command

c_51 — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 09:31:58 GMT

and alias aliasName will just give the alias for just that alias.

and typeset -f will list the shell functions

Re: alias command

MikeL_4 — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 09:33:20 GMT

If I had an alias defined: command='ls -al /user ' When I enter the alias, command
don't execute the ls -al /user but rather display the line so I could modify it if needed to say: ls -al /tmp

Re: alias command

Geoff Wild — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 09:50:53 GMT

Then what you really want is an alias like this:

alias cmd="ls -al"

then

cmd /usr
cmd /user

Rgds...Geoff

Re: alias command

Muthukumar_5 — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 10:23:38 GMT

I got to know your requirement.

Try as,
$ alias test='echo "ls -l /user going to be executed"; echo "want to change (Y/N)"; read opt; if [[ $opt = "Y" || $opt = "y" ]]; then echo "Enter directory"; read dir; fi; ls -l $dir'

Execution of test will be as,

$ test
ls -l /user going to be executed
want to change (Y/N)
Y
Enter directory
.

It will display all files / directory there.
alias command can be used as shell script there.

HTH.

Re: alias command

Rodney Hills — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 10:43:32 GMT

The "whence" command under ksh will display where a command is located or for an alias it will display the alias mapping.

HTH

-- Rod Hills

Re: alias command

Bill Hassell — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 11:24:35 GMT

To amplify the whence command a bit, use whence -v or the built-in alias: type I have long abandoned which, whereis and alias to figure out what will happen when you type a particular command to the shell. Only type will give you correct information. For example, run which and whereis on these commands:

# which if for stop whence type
# whereis if for stop whence type

You'll see that if, for and stop are not found at all, and that type is /usr/bin/type. But none of those reports are correct at all. That is not what the shell will do. Now do this:

# type if for stop whence type
if is a keyword.
for is a keyword.
stop is an exported alias for kill -STOP
whence is a shell builtin.
type is an exported alias for whence -v

whence and type will tell you what the shell will do. "whereis type" might lead you to believe that /usr/bin/type will be run but that's incorrect. Instead, the shell will run the command whence -v and whence is a shell built-in.

So always use type to see what the shell will do. This is EXTREMELY important if you have the current working directory in $PATH (a very bad idea). If :. or :.: are in your $PATH, someone can put a script called su in some directory and get you to run it by mistake. type will tell where your su will be found by the current shell and environment.

Re: alias command

MikeL_4 — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 12:28:00 GMT

Thanks