How to pass command line arguments to a shell alias?

shell alias
Vini picture Vini · Jun 2, 2009 · Viewed 210k times · Source

How do I pass the command line arguments to an alias? Here is a sample:

alias mkcd='mkdir $1; cd $1;'

But in this case the $xx is getting translated at the alias creating time and not at runtime. I have, however, created a workaround using a shell function (after googling a little) like below: 

function mkcd(){
  mkdir $1
  cd $1
}

Just wanted to know if there is a way to make aliases that accept CL parameters.
BTW - I use 'bash' as my default shell.

Answer

Thomas Bratt picture Thomas Bratt · Mar 27, 2014

Just to reiterate what has been posted for other shells, in Bash the following works:

alias blah='function _blah(){ echo "First: $1"; echo "Second: $2"; };_blah'

Running the following:

blah one two

Gives the output below:

First: one
Second: two

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