Make a Bash alias that takes a parameter?

Question

I used to use CShell (csh), which lets you make an alias that takes a parameter. The notation was something like

alias junk=\"mv \\\\!* ~/.Trash\"
         


        

Answer 1

If you're looking for a generic way to apply all params to a function, not just one or two or some other hardcoded amount, you can do that this way:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# you would want to `source` this file, maybe in your .bash_profile?
function runjar_fn(){
    java -jar myjar.jar "$@";
}

alias runjar=runjar_fn;

So in the example above, i pass all parameters from when i run runjar to the alias.

For example, if i did runjar hi there it would end up actually running java -jar myjar.jar hi there. If i did runjar one two three it would run java -jar myjar.jar one two three.

I like this $@ - based solution because it works with any number of params.