Tushar Tyagi

Posted on Sep 24, 2020 • Updated on Oct 11, 2020

What are some useful bash aliases you use?

#bash #shell #linux #unix

Here are mine.

1. yeet (delete) the directory and all it's contents.

alias yeet="rm -rf"

2. quickly move one or two directory up in bash.

alias ..="cd .."
alias ...="cd ../.."

3. [function] Extract files from any archive. (stolen from Manjaro's Default bashrc)

ex ()
{
  if [ -f $1 ] ; then
    case $1 in
      *.tar.bz2)   tar xjf $1   ;;
      *.tar.gz)    tar xzf $1   ;;
      *.bz2)       bunzip2 $1   ;;
      *.rar)       unrar x $1     ;;
      *.gz)        gunzip $1    ;;
      *.tar)       tar xf $1    ;;
      *.tbz2)      tar xjf $1   ;;
      *.tgz)       tar xzf $1   ;;
      *.zip)       unzip $1     ;;
      *.Z)         uncompress $1;;
      *.7z)        7z x $1      ;;
      *)           echo "'$1' cannot be extracted via ex()" ;;
    esac
  else
    echo "'$1' is not a valid file"
  fi
}

Please do not forget to share yours.

Top comments (3)

Heiker • Sep 24 '20 • Edited

The only use case I have for du

alias duh='du -d 1 -h'

For directory navigation I prefer numbers.

alias -- -='cd -'
alias c1='cd ..'
alias c2='cd ../..'
alias c3='cd ../../..'
alias c4='cd ../../../..'

Some shortcuts for common tmux commands

alias ta='tmux attach -t'
alias tl='tmux list-sessions'
alias ts='tmux new-session -A -D -s'
alias tmus='ts music "$(which cmus)"'

alias pmd-start='ts pomodoro gone -e "notify-send -u critical Pomodoro Timeout"'

That last one uses: gone.

And some cool key bindings. I put these in a .inputrc file in my home.

# Up Arrow
"\e[A": history-search-backward

# Down Arrow
"\e[B": history-search-forward

This changes the behavior of the Up and Down arrows, if you have some text in your prompt it will perform a search using that text. Is like a "prefix search". Let's say I have these three commands in my history.

vim /tmp/test.txt
nvim /tmp/test.txt
echo "a string with vi in it"
vim /tmp/other-text.txt

If you start writing vi and then hit the Up arrow it will only cycle through the commands that start with vi. In this case it will skip nvim and the one that has vi in the middle.

If you are not a fan of changing the arrow keys behavior I suggest using these.

# Alt + k
"\ek": history-search-backward

# Alt + j
"\ej": history-search-forward

You can find more aliases and functions on my dotfiles.

Tushar Tyagi • Sep 25 '20

I'll steal you directory navigation aliases.

soconn • Sep 28 '20 • Edited

alias psg="ps -ef| grep"
alias update="sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo snap refresh"
alias adios="update && sudo shutdown"
alias ltr="ls -ltr"
alias h="history | grep "

DEV Community

What are some useful bash aliases you use?

Here are mine.

1. yeet (delete) the directory and all it's contents.

2. quickly move one or two directory up in bash.

3. [function] Extract files from any archive. (stolen from Manjaro's Default bashrc)

Top comments (3)

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