7 Super Useful Aliases to make your development life easier 👨‍💻 👩‍💻

Let’s talk to your machine in your own language

Photo by Erik Odiin on Unsplash

npm install --save express
sudo apt-get update
brew cask install docker

Commands like these are our daily routine. Software Developer, Dev ops, Data Scientists, System Admin or in any other profession, we need to play with a few regular commands again and again.

It’s tiresome to write these commands every time we need them 😫

Wouldn’t it be better if we could use some kind of shortcuts for these commands?

Meet Your Friend — Alias

What if I tell you that you can use

nis express

Instead of

npm install --save express

Stay with me, we’ll find out how 😉

What’s alias ?

It’s a text-only interface for your terminal or shell commands that can be mapped with longer and more complex commands under the hood!

How ?

Open your terminal and type alias then press Enter

You’ll see a list of available aliases on your machine.

If you look closely you’ll find a common pattern to use aliases -

alias alias_name="command_to_run"

So, we’re simply mapping commands with names! (almost)

Let’s Create a few

NOTE: For the purpose of this tutorial, please keep your terminal open and use one terminal to test these aliases. use cd if you need to change directory.

1. Install node Packages

npm install --save packagename ➡️ nis packagename
Type the command below in your terminal and press Enter -

alias nis="npm install --save "

Now, we can use nis express to install express inside your node project.

2. Git add and commit

git add . && git commit -a -m "your commit message"
➡️ gac "your commit message"

alias gac="git add . && git commit -a -m "

WARNING: This is not a recommended alias to use, use it if and only if you know what you’e

3. Search Through Terminal History

history | grep keyword ➡️ hs keyword

alias hs='history | grep'

Now, if we need to search thorough our history to find everything with the keyword test we just have to execute hs test to find our expected result.

4. Make and enter inside a directory

mkdir -p test && cd test ➡️ mkcd test

alias mkcd='foo(){ mkdir -p "$1"; cd "$1" }; foo '

5. Show my ip address

curl http://ipecho.net/plain ➡️ myip

alias myip="curl http://ipecho.net/plain; echo"

6. Open file with admin access

sudo vim filename ➡️ svim filename

alias svim='sudo vim'

7. Update your linux pc/server

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get update ➡️ update

alias update='sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade'

Persistant Aliases

You’ve learnt how to create aliases. Now it’s time to make them persistent throughout your system. Depending on what type of shell/terminal you’re using you need to copy-paste your aliases inside ~/.bashrc or ~/.bashprofile or ~/.zshrc if you’re using zsh as your default terminal.

Example:

As I’m using zsh as my default terminal, I’ve to edit ~/.zshrc file to add my aliases. First of all let’s open it with admin access with sudo vim ~/.zshrc .

Now, I need to paste my alias/aliases like alias hs='history | grep' then exit with saving by entering :wq inside vim

Then to take effect I need to execute source ~/.zshrc and restart my terminal. From now on, the hs command will be available throughout my system 😃

Bonus

oh-my-zsh is a great enhancement for your terminal which comes with some default aliases and beautiful interface.

As you’ve learnt how to use aliases, let’s go and create some awesome aliases and share it in the response section.

Happy Coding 💻

Helpful Source:
https://seesparkbox.com/foundry/command_line_tools_for_frontend_developers

Colorize Your Shell Commands without any libraries or plugins 💻

Bash It! A gentle Peek Inside Shell Scripting! 🐚

✉️ Subscribe to CodeBurst’s once-weekly Email Blast, 🐦 Follow CodeBurst on Twitter, view 🗺️ The 2018 Web Developer Roadmap, and 🕸️ Learn Full Stack Web Development.