Re: How to create parameterized aliases in bashrc

[Dave B]

Aman Jain wrote:

> Hi
> 
>  I would like to create an alias to show Nth line of a file.
> 
>  I  tried something like
>  alias shline='head -$1 $2 | tail -1'  #$1 is the line number and $2
> is the filename
>                                                    # Usage should be :
> $    shline 5 file.txt
> 
> But it isn't working......

You can't pass parameters to aliases.

> Can anyone suggest a better alternative

Use a function.

shline() { head -n $1 "$2" | tail -n 1; }

-- 
D.