4.3.15 Command Aliases

Aliases allow a string to be substituted for a word when it is used as the first word of a command. The daemon maintains a list of aliases that are created using the alias configuration file statement:

Configuration: alias word command ¶

Creates a new alias.

Aliases are useful to facilitate manual interaction with the server, as they allow the administrator to create abbreviations for some frequently typed commands. For example, the following alias creates new command d which is equivalent to DEFINE *:

alias d DEFINE "*";

Aliases may be recursive, i.e. the first word of command may refer to another alias. For example:

alias d DEFINE;
alias da d "*";

This configuration will produce the following expansion:

da word ⇒ DEFINE * word

To prevent endless loops, recursive expansion is stopped if the first word of the replacement text is identical to an alias expanded earlier.