Aliases not working

Greetings,
I'd like to set up some aliases for use on my macbook. I'm using the bash shell and have read different posts on how to create a file for storing aliases. One tells me to create a .tcshrc file and another says to create a .bashrc file - each in the home directory. I've created both, but neither one seems to work when I try to test one of my aliases in a Terminal window.

Should I use a .bashrc file with the bash shell or .tschrc? Just saving the files doesn't seem to work. I exit and re-enter a Terminal, but as said, the aliases do not work. Am I missing a step?

Example of .bashrc
alias lsla 'ls -la'
... some other simple aliases...

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Do you mean "aliases", "hard links" or "symbolic links"?

They are all different animals that do similar jobs. Aliases are created in the Finder, whereas hard and symbolic links are created in the CLI. Although an alias can be created through the CLI, unless you needed to script it, why would you do it?

Some good info,..

Hard link vs Symbolic link - MacNN Forums

An alias works differently than a sym-link because you can move the original around the same volume and it will still work. A hard link references the same inode number which is like an alias but the alias does not have the same file size associated with the original file.

I think he means Unix command aliases, not Mac filesystem aliases.

Whether you use a .bashrc or .tcshrc depends on whether you're using BASH (which is the default) or tcsh.

You are probably using bash and if so, the format of your aliases are incorrect.
They should look like this:

alias ll='ls -laghF'
alias l='ls -laghF'
alias grep='grep -n'

Notice the = after the alias.
Save your .bashrc file and restart Terminal.

Thanks for the replies all.
I do mean the unix style aliases used to let me use shortcuts in my terminal window.

echo $SHELL nets me:
/bin/bash

So, I'm using the bash shell and .bashrc to store my aliases. I added the '=' (equals) to my lines and restarted a Terminal window. Still does not work. I've done this many times in my Ubuntu desktop without problems. Makes me say, Grrrrr!

My aliases reduced to simple ones to test the file:
>> cat .bashrc

alias webdev 'ssh [email protected]'
alias cdrails 'cd depot/mainline/websw/intraroot/rails/'

alias rm='rm -i'
alias mv='mv -i'
alias cp='cp -i'
alias lsla='ls -la'

Thanks for the tips.
YankeeFan

Which ones don't work? These should:

alias rm='rm -i'
alias mv='mv -i'
alias cp='cp -i'
alias lsla='ls -la'

These won't without the =:

alias webdev 'ssh [email protected]'
alias cdrails 'cd depot/mainline/websw/intraroot/rails/'

and may not anyway, I'm not familiar with using ssh in an alias.

None of these work in my terminal. Thanks for spotting the missing '=' is the last two. I specifically tried the lsla alias and the alias cp. Neither worked.

I'll have to try again at home later. I do not have my laptop with me today.

Thanks for the tips.

YankeeFan

Just for giggles open a Terminal and type:

alias

What comes up? It's possible your .bashrc isn't being sourced, therefore the aliases don't work.

>> aslias gets me:
alias rvm-restart='source '\''/Users/johncowan/.rvm/scripts/rvm'\'''

I agree with you cradom. I started thinking that maybe my mac is not seeing the .bashrc file. How do I get it to be sourced, as you put it.

Thanks,

I got it!
In ~/.bash_profile I added my .bashrc file.

# Get the aliases and functions
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
. ~/.bashrc
fi

That does the trick. I'm good.

Failed to thank everyone for helping me with this. It is much appreciated.

YankeeFan

Glad you got it working!

Is there a way to mark these threads as complete or solved? Thanks,