Create Bash aliases to work faster

Tired of typing the same long commands over and over? Do you feel inefficient working on the command line? Bash aliases can make a world of difference.

A bash alias is used to create or overwrite a command which you can use in the terminal.

For example, you can define a command init to run npm init, or maybe a command status to run git status. So if you run init, npm init will be run. You can even configure arguments (my current favourite command is mkcd <folder> which creates a folder and cds into it)

Creating bash aliases are easy. There are mainly three methods to do so.

1. Do it directly from the terminal

In a terminal, run alias command_name="command to execute" (alias status="git status"). That's it!

The only downside to this is that the aliases can't take arguments. That brings us to....

2. Add it to your ~/.bashrc

Open the ~/.bashrc file in any editor and add an alias just like you did before:

# alias command_name="command to execute"
alias status="git status"

And that's it! What's more, you can configure arguments to aliases by using functions! To get the first argument use "$1", and to get the second argument use "$2", etc.

You may need to read more about functions, but the below functions should give you an idea of how it works.

# mkdir folder and cd folder
# example: mkcd folder
mkcd() {
    mkdir "$1" && cd "$1"
}

# notify me after a long process is over
# example: notify "npm run build"
notify() {
    eval "$1" && say "Done!"
}

Once you have saved this file, run source ~/.bashrc to make sure the new aliases have been loaded.

Optional: Create a new file to hold aliases

You can create a new file like ~/.bash_aliases and save the aliases in there. Just remember to add the following to your ~/.bashrc:

if [ -e $HOME/.bash_aliases ]; then
    source $HOME/.bash_aliases
fi

Now, the aliases can be added in the ~/.bash_aliases.

Once again, run source ~/.bashrc to make sure the new aliases have been loaded.