Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

How can I simply persist functions written in the current terminal session for later use?

+1
−0

Suppose I write a Bash function at the command line:

$ hello-world() { echo "Hello, world!"; }

and I revise (perhaps hitting up-arrow to retrieve it from command history and edit it) and test and debug it, and eventually have a working function that does what I want:

$ hello-world 
Hello, world!

Now I'd like to make this available in future sessions, so I... well, currently, the best I can come up with is type hello-world | tail -n+2 >> ~/.bash_aliases (using tail to remove the helpful hello-world is a function message).

Is there a built-in, or simpler way to do this? Ideally, something that would add every function I've written in the current shell?

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

0 comment threads

1 answer

+0
−0

Are you familiar with the Bash history shortcuts? The most basic is !! to refer to the last command you entered. This lets you do things like sudo !! to run the last command with privileges.

You could use that or the "search" one (last command containing substring: !?) to echo it to your alias file.

echo '!?()' >> ~/.bash_aliases
History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

0 comment threads

Sign up to answer this question »