creating an alias of a command with plenty special characters - eviltoast

Hello all, I wan to create an alias of this command: alias dockps = "docker ps --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}\t{{.Ports}}""

The syntax for creating an alias is: alias $COMMAND = "docker ps --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}\t{{.Ports}}""

However, since there are quote marks, I assume they neet to be escaped with \. But in the case above, I’m getting the errors in fish and bash.

Fish error: $ alias dockps = "docker ps --format \"table {{.ID}} {{.Names}} {{.Status}} {{.Ports}}\""

alias: expected <= 2 arguments; got 3

Bash error: $ alias dockps = "docker ps --format \"table {{.ID}} {{.Names}} {{.Status}} {{.Ports}}\"" bash: alias: dockps: not found bash: alias: =: not found bash: alias: docker ps --format "table {{.ID}} {{.Names}} {{.Status}} {{.Ports}}": not found

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: For fish shell users out there, this can be accomplished by using func: $ function dockerps docker ps --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}\t{{.Ports}}" end $ funcsave dockerps

I’m leaving the question up as the question with escape characters is still relevant and can be a learning resouce.

  • calm.like.a.bomb@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 months ago

    As the others have said, your first issue is using blank spaces before and after =

    Then, when you need to use double quotes in a command, the alias should be defined with single quotes, like this:

    \$ alias dockps='docker ps --format "table {{.ID}}  {{.Names}}  {{.Status}}  {{.Ports}}"'
    
    • krash@lemmy.mlOP
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      10 months ago

      Thank you (and all others who replied), this worked flawlessly :-)