Alias command /and/ flags

Alias command /and/ flags

[Yuri D'Elia]

Let's imagine I want to alias the specific invocation of "cmd flag" with
"cmd2 flag2". Is it possible to alias commands with arguments (that is,
only in command position and *not* global replacements)?

I'm of course looking for an *exact* match of the positional parameters,
no more.

I can think of a way by defining a "cmd" function and do the checking on
the arguments myself, which is definitely more generalizable, although
seems a bit overkill for a simple scenario I had in mind.

Any reason:

  alias "cmd flag"="cmd2 flag2"

shouldn't work at least in principle?

Re: Alias command /and/ flags

[Bart Schaefer]

On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 10:31 AM, Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@thregr.org> wrote:
>
> Any reason:
>
>   alias "cmd flag"="cmd2 flag2"
>
> shouldn't work at least in principle?

Sorry, no.  Aliases (even "alias -g" global ones) operate on shell
syntax words, which in the most straightforward case means strings of
non-whitespace separated by whitespace.  You can't create an alias for
something that has any word-delimiting space in the middle of it.

> I can think of a way by defining a "cmd" function and do the checking on
> the arguments myself

This is probably going to be the simplest option that will cover your
requirements.  There are also various ways to attack this through
custom ZLE widgets but that would get even more esoteric.

Re: Alias command /and/ flags

[Yuri D'Elia]

On Tue, Nov 22 2016, Bart Schaefer wrote:
>> I can think of a way by defining a "cmd" function and do the checking on
>> the arguments myself
>
> This is probably going to be the simplest option that will cover your
> requirements.  There are also various ways to attack this through
> custom ZLE widgets but that would get even more esoteric.

The function approach is fine for me, it was mostly a curiosity.