Re: activate alias inside subshell

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

> Some elegant solution?
>

>     " As a consequence, aliases defined in a function are not
>     available until after that function is executed. To be safe,
>     always put alias definitions on a separate line, and do not use
>     alias in compound commands.
>
> And another quote, this time from |zsh| manual:
>
>     There is a commonly encountered problem with aliases illustrated
>     by the following code:
>
>     |alias echobar='echo bar';echobar|
>
>     This prints a message that the command echobar could not be found."
>
Ok, that is clear.  Too bad whence seems to report the thing as active, 
that had me beating my head against the wall.  Something like a runtime 
expansion would be a nice option to have but it seems that unheard of.   
But another mystery:


    mag=$'\e[35;1m'
    cyn=$'\e[36;1m'
    nrm=$'\e[0m'

    yelline () { echo -e "$yel$@$nrm" }

    function msg () { echo -e "${grn}$@${nrm}" }
    alias msg='yelline ${(%):-%x %I}:'

    function test1 ()
    {
    (
    whence -va msg; declare -f msg
    msg one

    msg () { echo nulled }

    whence -va msg; declare -f msg
    msg where has the alias gone?
    echo "\n==========================\n"
    )
    }

Output:

     $ . test1; test1

    msg is an alias for yelline ${(%):-%x %I}: <<  fine
    msg is a shell function from test1                  << fine,
    function is right and alias is there
    msg () {
         echo -e "${grn}$@${nrm}"
    }
    test1 14: one <<  fine, the alias is  in effect.
    msg is an alias for yelline ${(%):-%x %I}:     << ok ..
    msg is a shell function from test1                 << ... but the
    function is not updated and ...
    msg () {
         echo -e "${grn}$@${nrm}"
    }
    nulled                                                  << ... the
    changed function now overrides the alias!

... in practice this is exactly what I need in the current situation -- 
to kill either function or alias, but it does seem strange that changing 
a function causes it to override an alias.  Is this documented somewhere?



>