Alias

Custom commands: make an executable for any command.

Description

The alias application maintains an assignment of alias names to commands in a configuration file alias.conf. When alias runs, it looks up its file name and runs the assigned command if any. Otherwise, if no assignment to that name exists, it runs in configuration mode, providing an alternative interface to edit the configuration file. The user may also directly edit alias.conf by following the JSON reference.

Why?

Some Windows applications are, to put kindly, limited. You might need to fool them into thinking that script you want it to run is actually an exe file. Or maybe you want that Linux executable under WSL to look like a native application. Do we really want to write another exe to run a single command? Do we really want to track down these developers, tell them to write better code, and hope they will? No? Here’s a workaround.

Requirements

.NET Core 3.0 runtime

Installation

Save the application to a directory in your PATH.

New-Item -Type Directory -Path ~\path | Set-Location
Start-BitsTransfer -Source https://github.com/lmmarsano/alias/releases/latest/download/alias-win-x64.zip
Expand-Archive -Path alias-win-x64.zip
Remove-Item -Path alias-win-x64.zip
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable(
	'PATH',
	(('%USERPROFILE%\path', [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('PATH', [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User) -split ';' | Select-Object -Unique -join ';'),
	[System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User
)

x86-64 binaries are also released for Linux and MacOS.

Example

In a directory containing the alias executable

New-Item -Type HardLink -Name test.exe -Value alias.exe
alias set test cmd /c echo
.\test hello world
# hello world

Usage

By convention, this guide assumes the alias application has the unassigned name alias, though the user can rename the application to any unassigned name.

Run External Command

In the same directory as the the alias executable, link or copy the executable to name (name.exe on Windows), configure name,

alias set name command initial-argument*

and run

name argument*

If name is configured, then this runs the configured command and initial arguments with the additional arguments.

command initial-argument* argument*

Add/Set Command

alias set name command argument*

Add or change named alias’ configuration. To pass - prefixed arguments, first include -- to disable option processing. -- will be excluded from the saved command. To save --, too, repeat it.

Remove Command

alias unset name

Remove the alias.

Reset

alias reset

Remove all configured aliases.

JSON Reference

Located in the same directory as the alias executable, alias.conf is a plain JSON file with a root object containing the "binding" property.

{"binding": bindings}

bindings

{(alias: commandEntry)*}

An object with any number of mappings between alias keys commandEntry values. Each alias must be unique.

alias

unique string

A plain string naming an alias. The name must include executable file name extension (exe on Windows) if the operating system requires it.

commandEntry

{"command": command, "arguments"?: arguments}

An object with "command" and optional "arguments" properties.

command

string

A string naming an executable. The full path is only required as your system requires (eg, directory not in the environment PATH variable).

arguments

string

A single string containing arguments as you would enter them in the console. Escape " as \" and \ as \\. The command will be called with these arguments and any additional arguments passed through invocation.

Development

Install at least .NET Core 3.0, clone the repository, change into the directory, and build.

git clone https://github.com/lmmarsano/alias.git
Set-Location -Path alias
dotnet build

Edit sources in source\Alias. For Visual Studio Code

code source\Alias

An executable is built under source\Alias\bin\Debug\netcoreapp3.0.

Set-Location -Path source\Alias\bin\Debug\netcoreapp3.0
.\Alias

Demo

Try it out by running the demo script

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process
.\Demo.ps1
.\Alias list
# alias-set
# alias-unset
# mklink

and running the generated executables.

• mklink.exe calls the link creation command from the cmd.exe environment
• alias-set.exe calls alias set and hardlinks an executable alias
• alias-unset.exe calls alias unset and removes the executable alias

To Do

Include file system operations to link/copy/remove the alias executable as configuration mode edits alias.conf.