Linux aliases in shell...

Sonny Chee

unread,

Oct 24, 2016, 9:52:15 PM10/24/16

to Ansible Project

Hey Guys,

Is there a way to make aliases available in a shell? I tried sourcing a file with aliases before invoking my alias with no luck... ie:

shell: . ~/.bash_aliases && my_command args

Any help would be appreciated.

Paul Tötterman

unread,

Oct 25, 2016, 4:29:18 AM10/25/16

to Ansible Project

Is there a way to make aliases available in a shell? I tried sourcing a file with aliases before invoking my alias with no luck

https://linux.die.net/man/1/bash :

Aliases are not expanded when the shell is not interactive, unless the expand_aliases shell option is set using shopt

Cheers,

Paul

Sonny Chee

unread,

Oct 26, 2016, 7:55:30 PM10/26/16

to Ansible Project

Thanks Paul, that makes sense.

Is it possible to set this behavior within Ansible? I tried the following without any luck...

shell: rs -z blah_blah
args:
creates: "{{ current_flags }}/{{ item }}_{{ ansible_date_time.date }}"
executable: /bin/bash +O expand_aliases

Paul Tötterman

unread,

Oct 27, 2016, 10:44:00 AM10/27/16

to Ansible Project

Is it possible to set this behavior within Ansible? I tried the following without any luck...

I would recommend that you don't use aliases in non-interactive shells. If the script grows, maybe use the script-module instead https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/script_module.html . Another option is to use shell functions instead of aliases.