How do I create an alias where the arguments go in the middle?

Question

I'm trying to define an alias where the arguments are inserted in the middle, instead of appended to the end.

I tried defining it like this:

alias grep_logs="grep $1 */log/*.log"

where $1 is the first argument to grep_logs, such that:

grep_logs foo

would execute the following command:

grep foo */log/*.log

but instead, it runs the command:

grep foo */log/*.log foo

which results in the error:

grep: foo: No such file or directory

Is it possible to do this using an alias or do I need to define a function?

Answer 1

Try defining a function in ~/.profile.

function greplogs(){
    grep "$1" */logs/*.log
}