Bash aliases are essential for anyone using the command line. An alias is basically just a shortcut for some other, typically longer command. In this guide I'll show you how to set up and use bash aliases.
Using a text editor, open your .bashrc file, which is typically found in your home directory.
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vim ~/.bashrcThis file is loaded whenever a new bash instance is started and should included bash-specific commands, like aliases.
The anatomy of an alias is as follows:
alias alias_name="text to alias"Here is a common example:
alias ll="ls -lha"This means that whenever you type ll, it will be as if you had typed ls -lha.
It is basically a substitution, so if you have an alias set up like this: alias g="git". Then you can type g pull, which will execute git pull.
If you'd like to use your alias, you can either open a new bash shell, or source your .bashrc file in your current shell using:
source ~/.bashrcThis basically executes everything in your .bashrc file as if you had typed each command.
It's good to know what version of Python you're running. Sometimes you may need a specific version to support an application. To check which version you currently have, we'll be using command line.
