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Wasser

Member

Registered: 2011-07-06

Posts: 23

[SOLVED] Using arguments in Bash Alias

Hi all!

I'm not very well-versed in the  art of bash scripting or anything and I am having some trouble doing an alias that uses two arguments.

My case:

My command:
"openssl aes-256-cbc -a -salt -in a.txt -out a.txt.aes"

What I wanted to do was an alias like this:
alias encrypt="openssl aes-256-cbc -a -salt -in $1 -out $2"

But it's not working. Actually, even using just the $1 and leaving a fixed string as $2 is not working.

Can anyone give me some help? Thanks!

Last edited by Wasser (2012-05-09 22:45:56)

Unia

Member

From: Stockholm, Sweden

Registered: 2010-03-30

Posts: 2,486

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Using arguments in Bash Alias

You gotta use single quote's (not sure of the correct English term):

' instead of "

Also, remember to reload your .bashrc after changing it.

Last edited by Unia (2012-05-07 18:03:10)

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xduugu

Member

Registered: 2008-10-16

Posts: 292

Re: [SOLVED] Using arguments in Bash Alias

Afaik, that's not possible with bash's aliases. But you can define a function:

encrypt() { openssl aes-256-cbc -a -salt -in "$1" -out "$2"; }

WorMzy

Administrator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 12,583

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Using arguments in Bash Alias

Use a function, or make a script and stick in your path.

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Wasser

Member

Registered: 2011-07-06

Posts: 23

Re: [SOLVED] Using arguments in Bash Alias

Thanks to all.

I will use a function (the single quote does not work).

But why does this happen?

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: [SOLVED] Using arguments in Bash Alias

But why does this happen?

Aliases simply don't take arguments, functions do (just like the mathematical functions).

Wasser

Member

Registered: 2011-07-06

Posts: 23

Re: [SOLVED] Using arguments in Bash Alias

But why does this happen?

Aliases simply don't take arguments, functions do (just like the mathematical functions).

Thanks

jjacky

Member

Registered: 2011-11-09

Posts: 347

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Using arguments in Bash Alias

Aliases simply don't take arguments, functions do (just like the mathematical functions).

Well, though one can of course use arguments with aliases, e.g.

alias p='sudo pacman'

still allows you do specify options, etc of course, such as:

p -Syu foobar

Might be "better"/less confusing to say that an alias is just a simple string replacement, and for more "complicated" things one needs indeed to e.g. use a function.

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karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: [SOLVED] Using arguments in Bash Alias

Sure, I often use aliases that way. as

alias foo="bar baz"

and

foo () { bar baz $1; }

are equivalent:

$ foo <some argument>

Wasser

Member

Registered: 2011-07-06

Posts: 23

Re: [SOLVED] Using arguments in Bash Alias

Ok. So actually the problem is replacing arguments in the middle of the command.

/dev/zero

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2011-10-20

Posts: 1,247

Re: [SOLVED] Using arguments in Bash Alias

Ok. So actually the problem is replacing arguments in the middle of the command.

Correct! You might also be interested in this recent thread, from about 6 posts down onwards: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=140146

Please remember to mark the thread solved .