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From: hansm@cs.kun.nl (Hans Mulder)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: aliases vs. shell functions (was Hard links vs. Soft links)
Summary: /bin/sh does not support aliases
Keywords: alias, /bin/sh, shell function
Message-ID: <2123@wn1.sci.kun.nl>
Date: 28 Aug 90 10:04:40 GMT
References: <1084.26d2a42b@desire.wright.edu> <13646@ulysses.att.com> <2866@wyse.wyse.com> <738@primerd.PRIME.COM>
Sender: root@sci.kun.nl
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Lines: 45

In article <738@primerd.PRIME.COM> milgr@teapot.prime.COM (Marc Milgram) writes:
>In article <2866@wyse.wyse.com>, bob@wyse.wyse.com (Bob McGowen x4312
>dept208) writes:
>|>As for using aliases for this function, only csh and ksh (if you have it)
>|>would be able to do this.
.
.
.
>aliases work in the bourne shell

No, they don't.

> (at least all of the /bin/sh's that I have used.)

Apparently, you have only used SysV-derived Un*xen.

>For example:
>
>ls()
>{
>  /bin/ls -CFb $@
>}

This is not an alias, it's a shell function.
Some /bin/sh's support these, others don't.
In particular, the /bin/sh that came with V7 didn't and
consequently the /bin/sh that comes with 4.[0-3]BSD still doesn't.

The Korn shell supports both aliases and shell functions; you can say either:

alias ls="/bin/ls -CBb"

or:

ls()
{
  /bin/ls -CFb "$@"		# Note the ""
}

and the effect is pretty much the same.


Hope this clarifies things a bit,

Hans Mulder	hansm@cs.kun.nl