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Aliases: Making the command line your friend

Kara Luton on November 11, 2019

How many times a day do you write git add, git commit -m and git push in your terminal? Tons! Wouldn't it be nice if there was a faster way to writ...

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Donald Feury • Nov 11 '19 • Edited

I made a couple recently while working on a Rails project.

# reload zsh config
alias reload!='RELOAD=1 source $HOME/.zshrc'

# rails
alias rgs='rails g scaffold'
alias rgmo='rails g model'
alias rgmi='rails g migration'
alias rgv='rails g view'
alias rgj='rails g job'

# rake/rails
alias rdbm='rake db:migrate'

# tmux
alias ta='tmux a'
alias tls='tmux ls'
alias tat='tmux a -t'
alias tns='tmux new -s'
alias tsync='tmux setw synchronize-panes'

I have the reload alias because I find myself tweaking my dotfiles frequently while working.

Tommy Williams • Nov 11 '19

Inspired by Oh My Zsh, there's Oh My Posh for PowerShell. It focuses only on command-line theming (no Git aliases).

github.com/JanDeDobbeleer/oh-my-posh

Combined with posh-git, it provides a very nice experience for Windows users with PowerShell.

tsjost • Nov 13 '19

I can't live without being able to entirely clear the terminal and its scrollback buffer:

alias cls='printf "\033c"'

Checking what directories and files are eating your precious disk space is invaluable too, and sorting the output (for GNU, not BSD/Mac):

alias duf='du -skh .[!.]* * | sort -h'

No need to keep typing git all the time when you can just:

alias g=git

My long list of git aliases for extreme efficiency, most of which I use daily:

logg = log --graph --decorate --oneline
lgg = log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%ar) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit --date=relative
lg = log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%ar)' --abbrev-commit --date=relative
l = !git lg HEAD ^master
sb = status -sb
a = add
ap = add -p
b = branch
d = diff
dc = diff --cached
unstash = !git stash show -p | git apply -3 && git stash drop
c = commit
co = checkout
ca = commit --amend
r = rebase
rc = rebase --continue
ri = rebase -i
ra = rebase --abort
m = merge
ma = merge --abort
s = show
st = stash
ss = stash show -p
sp = stash pop

And when you're feeling too lazy to write proper commit messages:

whatever = !git commit -m\"`curl -s https://whatthecommit.com/index.txt`\"

(don't actually do this 😛)

Joe • Nov 11 '19 • Edited

This one formats the git log to be more concise: ls = git log --pretty=format:"%ci\\ %C(yellow)%h%Cred%d\\ %Creset%s%Cblue\\ [%cn]" --decorate

2019-11-08 15:41:44 -0800 de01370 add dev warning to admin config [Joe Kaiser]
2019-11-07 15:36:34 -0800 eab0f32 sort configItems after search [Joe Kaiser]
2019-11-06 22:18:59 -0800 ea7cf65 new/delete config items [Joe Kaiser]
2019-11-06 21:29:29 -0800 aafafb2 admins can update config items [Joe Kaiser]
2019-11-05 17:29:16 -0800 a21a51e admin user pages [Joe Kaiser]

Delete all branches that were once part of origin, but are no longere there. Any local branches you have made but not pushed will be safe. prune-branches = git remote prune origin && git branch -vv | grep ': gone]' | awk '{print $1}' | xargs -r git branch -D

$> git prune-branches
Pruning origin
 * [pruned] origin/emailTrack
 * [pruned] origin/failedPause
 * [pruned] origin/fullheight
 * [pruned] origin/inboxui

Zak Miller • Nov 12 '19

What I use for git:

alias gs "git status"
alias ga "git add"
alias gc "git commit"
alias gp "git push"
alias gpl "git pull"
alias gch "git checkout"
alias gt "git add -u && git commit --amend --no-edit && git push -f"
alias gl "git log"

For hugo:

alias hs "hugo server --disableFastRender --watch -v"

To generate a UUID (universally unique identifier) quickly:

alias uuid="python -c 'import sys,uuid; sys.stdout.write(uuid.uuid4().hex)' | pbcopy && pbpaste && echo"

To do an ls every time I do a cd:

function cd
    if count $argv > /dev/null
        builtin cd "$argv"; and ls
    else
        builtin cd ~; and ls
    end
end

Richard Schloss • Nov 13 '19

gpod: git pull origin development
grod: git rebase -i development (grod as in "Git Rebase On top of Development"; the "o" is for "on")
(because when working on I team, I always have to remember to get current first...that's easy to forget)

🏎️Tim Beaudet🚀 • Nov 11 '19

Not super original but I like:

git cm (commit --message)
git pr (pull --rebase)
git ss (stash --save)
git lg (git --log --oneline ???) and other nice options.

Jean-Michel Plourde • Nov 12 '19

my favorite zsh alias is gpsup for git push --set-upstream

Filip Ilić • Nov 11 '19

After reading this I was interested how to make alias with variable, so I googled it and find out you can use functions since aliases do not support variable.

Put this inside function in your .bashrc or .zshrc file:

mtd () { mv "$@" /path/to/documents/; }

To move file.md to documents just use:

 file.md

Or... you can put the function in an alias:

alias mtd='mvtd () { mv "$@" /path/to/documents/; }; mvtd;'