use aliases command in entr

[nicola-lunghi]

Hi
I have an alias set like
alias my_cmd='./do_something && ./do_something_else && echo "done"'

how can I use it with entr like

git ls-files | entr my_cmd

??

[iamleot]

Hello @nicola-lunghi!
Probably the easiest way is just using a script instead of having an alias.

[nicola-lunghi]

Hi I just found that I can do

git ls-files | entr sh -c "${BASH_ALIASES[my_cmd]}"

In bash > 4.0

:-)

[eradman]

I agree with @iamleot that a script it usually the most strait-forward thing to do:

git ls-files | entr ./build.sh

This is worth it even for a one-line script because when you cd to the directory it's obvious what to do. Thanks for posting your solution as well! Closing

[nielsbom]

I use quite a lot of aliases, having entr be able to use them directly would be very comfortable.

I don't know how to write C, but I'm interested to know how/why this was not implemented. Are aliases special or difficult in some ways?

Could I write a PR to enable this functionality? Would you accept such a PR @eradman ?

[eradman]

Aliases are special because they're not part of the environment, they're a feature of the shell. This means entr can't inherit or inject them.

@nielsbom it's good that you brought this back up because there is a simple we can do, namely run shell with the login -l flag:

... | entr sh -l -c "..."

Each shell is different, but here is the relevant part from the bash(1) man page

When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable.

Another option is to source a file that defines aliases directly

... | entr sh -c ". ./profile; ..."

[eradman]

Closing since the use of shell aliases it outside the scope of what entr should or can take responsibility for.

As noted, files can be sourced manually

... | entr -s '. .myenv.sh; ...'