Saw an command from this post https://askubuntu.com/a/266839/75967 that I would like to alias
find {,/usr}/{,s}bin -printf '%f\0' | xargs -0 whatis | sort | less
I assume the less
or the |
is interfering but how can I make the alias command ignore those characters that is causing it issues?
ie. This doesn't work
alias cccc='find {,/usr}/{,s}bin -printf '%f\0' | xargs -0 whatis | sort | less'
cccc
It returns
pell0modem-manager0airserv-ng0usermod0vipw0filefrag0update-software-center0ntpdate-
debian0usbmuxd0foomatic-extract-text0cupsenable0dpkg-divert0dpkg-preconfigure0foomatic-
getpjloptions0ldattach0hplj10200bccmd0vpnc-disconnect0madwifi-
unload0cupsd0tcpd0hplj10180pppstats0service0update-icon-caches0atieventsd0hpljP15050grub-
set-default0userdel0arpd0gpsdctl0remove-shell0cpgr0winbindd0cracklib-format0update-catalog0wesside-ng0vmware-authdlauncher0aireplay-ng0install-docs0hciattach0lpc0install-menu0ck-log-system-restart0foomatic-printermap-to-gutenprint-xml0setvesablank0gconf-schemas0airmon-ng0zic0update-apt-xapian-index0pm-suspend0rebuild-
Instead of
[ (1) - check file types and compare values
2to3 (1) - Python2 to Python3 converter
2to3-2.7 (1) - Python2 to Python3 converter
2to3-3.2 (1) - Python2 to Python3 converter
411toppm (1) - convert Sony Mavica .411 image to ppm
7z (1) - A file archiver with highest compression ratio
7za (1) - A file archiver with highest compression ratio
a2p (1) - Awk to Perl translator
accept (2) - accept a connection on a socket
accessdb (8) - dumps the content of a man-db database in a human read...
aclocal-1.11 (1) - manual page for aclocal 1.11.6
aclocal (1) - manual page for aclocal 1.11.3
when you execute the command by itself.
After the Fact - Supplemental
I also added another useful function for myself to query via a string against that catalogue of commands.
fff() {
find {,/usr}/{,s}bin -printf '%f\0' | xargs -0 whatis |& grep $1
}
So if you type the command fff pdf
it will show you all the related commands about pdf like this
pdfunite (1) - Portable Document Format (PDF) page merger
ps2pdf13 (1) - Convert PostScript to PDF 1.3 (Acrobat 4-and-later com...
pdftotext (1) - Portable Document Format (PDF) to text converter (vers...
ps2pdfwr (1) - Convert PostScript to PDF without specifying Compatibi...
pdfdetach (1) - Portable Document Format (PDF) document embedded file ...
ps2pdf (1) - Convert PostScript to PDF using ghostscript
ps2pdf12 (1) - Convert PostScript to PDF 1.2 (Acrobat 3-and-later com...
pdf2dsc (1) - generate a PostScript page list of a PDF document
pdfimages (1) - Portable Document Format (PDF) image extractor (versio...
pdftoppm (1) - Portable Document Format (PDF) to Portable Pixmap (PPM...
foomatic-ppdfile (1) - Generate a PPD file for a given printer/driver combo
dvipdf (1) - Convert TeX DVI file to PDF using ghostscript and dvips
qpdf (1) - PDF transformation software
pdftocairo (1) - Portable Document Format (PDF) to PNG/JPEG/PDF/PS/EPS/...
pdfseparate (1) - Portable Document Format (PDF) page extractor
pdftops (1) - Portable Document Format (PDF) to PostScript converter...
ps2pdf14 (1) - Convert PostScript to PDF 1.4 (Acrobat 5-and-later com...
pdfinfo (1) - Portable Document Format (PDF) document information ex...
pdftohtml (1) - program to convert PDF files into HTML, XML and PNG im...
pdfopt (1) - Ghostscript PDF Optimizer
pdffonts (1) - Portable Document Format (PDF) font analyzer (version ...
pdf2ps (1) - Ghostscript PDF to PostScript translator
I think this is kind of useful for knowing all the commands that are available
Best Answer
Don't bother around with aliases for more complicated stuff, use a shell function instead:
See
man bash
for the justification: