Can sudo use the existing aliases

bashsudoterminal

How can I let sudo use my existing aliases in my .bash_profile (or .bashrc, .profile …)?
For example I want to be able to use ll instead of ls -laGF as sudo.

Best Answer

No. Sudo draws from the root account and won't consult your user's ~/.bash_profile.

But you can workaround this problem by adding the following alias to your profile:

alias sudo='sudo '

*Note the space after the command. From then on, sudo will work normally and you'll be able to use your user's aliases without issue (both normally and with root privileges).

Explanation: http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html#Aliases says:

If the last character of the alias value is a space or tab character, then the next command word following the alias is also checked for alias expansion.

Related Solutions

MacOS – How to persistently define aliases in Terminal

If you use bash, add the alias commands to ~/.bashrc and save a file like this as ~/.bash_profile:

. ~/.bashrc

When bash is invoked as an interactive non-login shell, it reads .bashrc but not .bash_profile. When bash is it is invoked as an interactive login shell, it reads .bash_profile but not .bashrc.

Terminal and iTerm open new shells as login shells by default, so many OS X users just use .bash_profile as their personal configuration file. For example tmux and the shell mode in Emacs open new shells as non-login shells though.

.profile is also read by other shells like ksh. If both .bash_profile and .profile exist, bash only reads .bash_profile when it is invoked as an interactive login shell.

See https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-Startup-Files.html for more information.

MacOS – Problem persistently defining aliases in terminal

The alias command requires you to have no spaces around the = and also you should use " or ' to enclose the string not the curly quote ‘ you have. That quote often appears in pdfs and books when the editing program tries to make things look nice.

so the command should be

alias showFiles="defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE; killall Finder"
alias hideFiles="defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE; killall Finder"

I can't find a reference for these but they are just things I have learnt :(

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MacOS – How to persistently define aliases in Terminal

MacOS – Problem persistently defining aliases in terminal

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