Tag Archives: pass variable

How to pass arguments to an alias in bash

Lets look at passing arguments to an alias by looking at an example.

The below command will open duckduckgo.com in a new tab in firefox.

firefox --new-window duckduckgo.com

Lets say, I want to create an alias but I want to pass the URL as a parameter to the alias.

For example, if I run the following command in the terminal, it should look at the first argument (which is the URL) and open it in a newtab in firefox.

ff duckduckgo.com

To achieve this, you can do the following:

Edit your ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile using your favorite editor.

vim ~/.bashrc

Create a function inside the ~/.bashrc  with the following content. [Copy/paste the below inside your bashrc]

alias ff='function _ff()
{
firefox --new-window $1
};_ff'

Here, $1 is the first argument.

Once you save and close the bashrc file, you can source your bashrc for changes to take affect.

source ~/.bashrc

Now, if you enter the following command in the terminal, it will take “duckduckgo.com” which is the 1st parameter and open it in a new tab in firefox.

ff duckduckgo.com

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Source: StackOverFlow