You need to use a function if you want to to insert arguments:
psa() {
ps aux | grep "$1" | awk '{print $2 "\t" $11 }' | grep -v grep
}
Question
I want to create an alias for an long command. But I'm not able to escape it correct, I guess it's a problem with the pipes.
My original command
ps aux | grep gimp | awk '{ print $2 '\011' $11 }' | grep -v 'grep'
My attempt for an alias
alias psa="ps aux | grep $1 | awk '{ print \$2 \"\011\" \$11 }' | grep -v 'grep'"
But I get an error that grep
can not open file foo
(when I do psa foo
)
When I remove the last part | grep -v 'grep'
then awk
throws the same error.
I prefer an alias before an shell script.
Solution
You need to use a function if you want to to insert arguments:
psa() {
ps aux | grep "$1" | awk '{print $2 "\t" $11 }' | grep -v grep
}
OTHER TIPS
You can avoid all the escaping by using a function for this:
myps() {
ps aux | grep gimp | awk '{ print $2 "\011" $11 }' | grep -v 'grep'
}