Re: Expanding interactively aliases

[Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>]

Michal Maru ka wrote:
> Is it possible (as in Bash 2.03) to expand an alias 
> and edit it after ?

You could use this function (e.g. `edit-alias myalias'), if what you want
is to change the definition of the alias.

edit-alias() {             
  local al
  al="$(alias $1)"  ||  return 1 
  print -z alias $al
}

Otherwise, if you just want the alias inlined in the code, and have a
recent zsh 3.1, try

expand-alias() {
  # for safety, in case there's an = which will mess things up...
  local alias=${LBUFFER#*=}

  if ! alias=$(alias $LBUFFER); then
    zle beep
    return 1
  fi

  LBUFFER=${(Q)${alias#*=}}
}
zle -N expand-alias
bindkey '^xa' expand-alias

and hit ^xa just after the alias (I'm assuming it's at the beginning of the
line, else there's more work to be done).

Quite possibly Sven has already added an option to the _expand completer by
now, otherwise I'll try and remember to look at that.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>                  Software Engineer
Cambridge Silicon Radio, Unit 300, Science Park, Milton Road,
Cambridge, CB4 0XL, UK                          Tel: +44 (0)1223 392070