~bzr-pqm/bzr/bzr.dev

Using aliases

=============

What are aliases?

-----------------

Aliases are an easy way to create shortcuts for commonly-typed commands, or to set

defaults for commands.

Defining aliases

----------------

Command aliases can be defined in the ``[ALIASES]`` section of your

``bazaar.conf`` file. Aliases start with the alias name, then an

equal sign, then a command fragment.  Here's an example ALIASES section::

    [ALIASES]

    recentlog=log -r-3..-1

    ll=log --line -r-10..-1

    commit=commit --strict

    diff=diff --diff-options -p

Here are the explanations of the examples above:

 * The first alias makes a new ``recentlog`` command that shows the logs for the

   last three revisions

 * The ``ll`` alias shows the last 10 log entries in line format.

 * the ``commit`` alias sets the default for commit to refuse to commit if new

   files in the tree are not recognized.

 * the ``diff`` alias adds the coveted -p option to diff

Using the aliases

-----------------

The aliases defined above would be used like so: ::

   % bzr recentlog

   % bzr ll

   % bzr commit

   % bzr diff

Rules for aliases

-----------------

 * You can override a portion of the options given in an alias by

   specifying the new part on the command-line.  For example, if

   you run ``lastlog -r-5..``, you will only get five line-based log

   entries instead of 10.  Note that all boolean options have an

   implicit inverse, so you can override the commit alias with

   ``commit --no-strict``.

 * Aliases can override the standard behaviour of existing commands by giving

   an alias name that is the same as the orignal command. For example, default

   commit is changed with ``commit=commit --strict``.

 * Aliases cannot refer to other aliases. In other words making a

   ``lastlog`` alias and referring to it with a ``ll`` alias will not work.

   This includes aliases that override standard commands.

 * Giving the ``--no-aliases`` option to the bzr command will tell it to ignore aliases

   for that run. For example, running ``bzr --no-aliases commit`` will perform a

   standard commit instead, not do a ``commit --strict``.