Aliases in Linux: the alias command

An alias is a short name that the shell expands into a longer command.

Common cases

alias ll='ls -lh'        # define an alias
alias                    # list every alias
alias gs='git status'    # another example
unalias ll               # remove an alias

How it works: an alias lives in the shell

The shell expands the alias on its own before it runs a command, so it works only in an interactive session and is invisible to scripts. If you set it on the command line, it disappears when you close the shell. To keep it for good, add the alias ... line to ~/.bashrc. If an alias shadows a real command, run the command by its full path or with a leading \: \ls ignores the alias.

Used in

You need this in the lesson The shell environment. The theory is the chapter The shell environment and configuration.

See also

The ~/.bashrc file.

Try it

Open the sandbox: a real throwaway Linux terminal in your browser. Run the commands above by hand - the container is deleted when you leave.