ALIAS(1CSH)             COMMAND REFERENCE             ALIAS(1CSH)



NAME
     alias, unalias - alias substitutions (csh built-in)

SYNOPSIS
     alias [ name [ wordlist ] ]
     unalias pattern

DESCRIPTION
     The shell maintains a list of aliases which can be
     established, displayed, and modified by the alias and
     unalias commands.  With no arguments, alias prints the names
     and wordlists for all aliases set.  With a name, the
     wordlist for that name is printed.  With a name and a
     wordlist, the wordlist is subjected to command and filename
     substitution and assigned to the name as an alias.  The
     unalias command deletes any aliases that match the given
     pattern. The command unalias * deletes all aliases.

     After a command line is scanned, it is parsed into distinct
     commands and the first word of each command, left-to-right,
     is checked to see if it has an alias.  If it does, then the
     text which is the alias for that command is reread with the
     history mechanism available as though that command were the
     previous input line.  The resulting words replace the
     command and argument list.  If no reference is made to the
     history list, then the argument list is left unchanged.

     Thus if the alias for ls is ls -l the command ls usr would
     map to ls -l usr, the argument list here being undisturbed.
     Similarly if the alias for lookup was grep !^ /etc/passwd
     then lookup bill would map to grep bill /etc/passwd.

     If an alias is found, the word transformation of the input
     text is performed and the aliasing process begins again on
     the reformed input line.  Looping is prevented, if the first
     word of the new text is the same as the old, by flagging it
     to prevent further aliasing.  Other loops are detected and
     cause an error.

     Note that the mechanism allows aliases to introduce parser
     metasyntax.  Thus you can alias print 'pr \!* | lpr' to make
     a command which pr's its arguments to the line printer.

EXAMPLES
     The following command causes the command ``ls -lR'' to be
     substituted for occurrences of the word ``list'' when it
     occurs in a command position.



          alias list ls -lR




Printed 10/17/86                                                1

ALIAS(1CSH)             COMMAND REFERENCE             ALIAS(1CSH)



     This command will delete any two-character aliases that end
     with the letter `e'.



          unalias ?e


CAVEATS
     Aliases can not contain the names ``alias'' or ``unalias''.

     If an alias contains it's own name in backquotes, an
     infinite loop may occur, which will crash the shell.  An
     example of one of these is



          alias ls 'echo `ls`'


     Aliases can not always be used in place of simple commands,
     such as in simple if statements.

     When one command of a multi-command alias is suspended, the
     other commands are forgotten by the shell.  If all commands
     of a multi-command alias need to be executed without being
     affected by suspension, the alias should be surrounded by
     parentheses, as in the following.



          alias change '(co -l \!* ; vi \!* ; ci -u \!* )'

SEE ALSO
     @(1csh), bg(1csh), break(1csh), cd(1csh), chdir(1csh),
     continue(1csh), csh(1csh), dirs(1csh), echo(1csh),
     eval(1csh), exec(1csh), exit(1csh), fg(1csh), glob(1csh),
     goto(1csh), hashstat(1csh), history(1csh), jobs(1csh),
     kill(1csh), limit(1csh), logout(1csh), nice(1csh),
     nohup(1csh), notify(1csh), onintr(1csh), popd(1csh),
     pushd(1csh), rehash(1csh), repeat(1csh), set(1csh),
     setenv(1csh), sh(1sh), shift(1csh), source(1csh),
     stop(1csh), suspend(1csh), time(1csh), umask(1csh),
     unhash(1csh), unalias(1csh), unlimit(1csh), unset(1csh),
     unsetenv(1csh), wait(1csh), which(1csh).










Printed 10/17/86                                                2

%%index%%
na:72,105;
sy:177,222;
de:399,2628;
ex:3027,249;3420,117;
ca:3537,779;
se:4316,1478;
%%index%%000000000118