ls Command – How to Show Only Hidden Files (Dot Files) in ls Alias

aliaslswildcards

I'm using the command

ls -a | grep '^\.'

for showing only the hidden files.
I added the line

alias hidden='ls -a | grep '^\.'' # show only hidden files

to .bash_aliases file

but this does not work. It's probably the problem with ' character.

Could you please help me write the correct alias?

Best Answer

Either make the inner pair of quotes double quotes:

alias hidden='ls -a | grep "^\."'

Or make the outer pair of quotes double quotes:

alias hidden="ls -a | grep '^\.'"

Or make all quotes double quotes and escape the inner pair:

alias hidden="ls -a | grep \"^\.\""

Or make it a function, so you can pass some arguments when calling:

hidden() { ls -a "$@" | grep '^\.'; }

Related Solutions

Grep – How to Create a Grep Alias with Line Numbers Unless in a Pipeline

You could use a function in bash (or any POSIX shell) like this:

grep() { 
    if [ -t 1 ] && [ -t 0 ]; then 
        command grep -n "$@"
    else 
        command grep "$@"
    fi
}

The [ -t 1 ] part uses the [ command (also known as test) to check if stdout is associated with a tty.

The [ -t 0 ] checks standard input, as well, since you specified to only add line numbers if grep is the only command in the pipeline.

Bash – Writing bash function as one-line alias

As @AndreasWiese comments, you can't do this with an alias. Aliases tack on arguments space-separated, so you can't join them (in a simple way) to the aliased command.

A comment on your function: Why are you using $@? You should use $1 instead. If you call your function with multiple arguments (p a b c), you'll probably get ~~an error (b: command not found)~~ an unknown directory.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Grep – How to Create a Grep Alias with Line Numbers Unless in a Pipeline

Bash – Writing bash function as one-line alias

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