ALIAS(1)                   Commands and Applications                  ALIAS(1)

NAME

       alias - define alternate command name (gsh builtin)

SYNOPSIS

       alias [ name command ]

DESCRIPTION

       The shell maintains a list of aliases that you can create, display, and
       modify using the alias and unalias  commands.   The  shell  checks  the
       first word in each command to see if it matches the name of an existing
       alias.  If it does, the command is reprocessed with the  alias  defini‐
       tion  replacing  its  name;  the history substitution mechanism is made
       available as though that command were the previous  input  line.   This
       allows  history  substitutions, escaped with a backslash in the defini‐
       tion, to be replaced with actual command-line arguments when the  alias
       is  used.   If no history substitution is called for, the arguments re‐
       main unchanged.

       Aliases can be nested.  That is, an alias definition  can  contain  the
       name  of another alias.  Nested aliases are expanded before any history
       substitutions is applied.  This is useful in pipelines such as

              alias  lm "ls  -l  |  more"

       which when called, pipes the output of ls(1) through more(1).

       Except for the first word, the name of the alias may not appear in  its
       definition, nor in any alias referred to by its definition.  Such loops
       are detected, and cause an error message.



GNO                             31 August 1996                        ALIAS(1)