How do I make an alias to substitute single word in a piped command?

Question

I use aliases a lot but right now only for use cases like alias i='sudo apt-get install -y'. I often would like to add an alias in the following form:

alias cmd='echo [something] >> /path/to/file' where I would like to substitute [something] with what I enter after the cmd.

I can obviously create a one-line script,save it somewhere and make an alias to that command but since I only want to substitute only 1 word in a pipe, is there a simpler way to do this?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 20 '14 at 20:15

1

Functions are perfectly suitable for this purpose. For example:

cmd() { echo $* >> /path/to/file'; }

This is on one line, just like an alias. But it can take parameters.

answered Dec 20 '14 at 20:15

janos

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Does the `$*` mean to take *all* of the command line arguments supplied? – syntagma Dec 20 '14 at 20:20
Yes. You can use `$1` if you want only the first argument. – janos Dec 20 '14 at 20:21

How do I make an alias to substitute single word in a piped command?

1 Answers1