Linux

65325 readers

385 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 7 years ago

MODERATORS

AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml

nooter692@lemmy.ml

MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml

cypherpunks@lemmy.ml

cyclohexane@lemmy.ml

d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz

Using alias of path in commands? (piefed.social)

submitted 13 hours ago by MolochHorridus@piefed.social to c/linux@lemmy.ml

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This is probably a very simple thing but I can’t find an answer, possibly because I don’t know what terms to use in search.

How do I use an alias of a path with mv or cp? Or even cd?

In /etc/bash.bashrc I have: alias docs=‘/media/docs

cd docs Gives “No such file or directory”

Yet: docs Gives “Is directory”

With alias docs=‘cd /media/docs’ and by typing docs I get into the directory. Obviously I can’t use that alias with mv or cp though.

Maybe this isn’t even an intended use of alias but still. Why doesn’t it work?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] TwistedTree@piefed.social 4 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

You should be using a variable not an alias.

Variables in bash have a few sharp edges; one of which is that spaces act as a delimiter and turn the variable into a list.

The other being that sometimes escaping and unescaping the contents of a variable can be stupidly tricky. This is why a lot of people who use bash do not like spaces in directory or file names.

[–] MolochHorridus@piefed.social 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

Thanks for the tip, but escaping and unescaping sounds tedious, since I use spaces in both directory and file names.

What I like about aliases here is that I have one central location to set them up and change them. If I ever were to forget what aliases I have it's just about opening the file and looking.

[–] TwistedTree@piefed.social 1 points 11 hours ago

eh, it's mostly automagic but the first few times you encounter it makes for some fun debugging.

Play around with the var=$(ls -A) construction a bit and see what is happening with your files.