Creating a command alias

Assigning an alias is done with the command:

alias name definition

• If definition is not given, then the current definition of name is displayed.

• If neither name nor definition are given, the names of all currently defined aliases are displayed.

• An existing command alias can be used within another command alias.

• An alias definition can be removed from the current invocation of the shell using the unalias command.

• You can make an alias a permanent feature of your environment by adding it to .cshrc.

Examples

• alias del 'rm -i'

  creates the alias del for the command rm -i which prompts for confirmation that you want to remove a file.

• alias dir 'ls -l | more'

  creates an alias for two commands combined by a pipe.

• unalias del

  removes the alias called del from the current session.

• alias unsafe "echo Vulnerable: ; find $HOME -perm -o+w -type -l"

  Here, the alias "unsafe" represents two commands. The first (echo) prints a heading and the second invokes Unix's find operation to scan the home directory tree for any files which permit writing by others ( -perm o+w). It does not print symbolic links ( -type -l) which appear to to be writeable to anyone.