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blueray avatar Ubuntu

alias not working as expected

ph flag
blueray

I am trying to get file types using an alias. I am using:

alias file-types="find . -type f | perl -ne 'print $1 if m/\.([^.\/]+)$/' | sort -u"

However, it is not working:

When I type the command in the terminal it shows (which is exactly what I want):

azw
azw3
bz2
chm
epub
pdf

but when I use the alias, it shows something like:

./x.epub
./y.pdf
./z.pdf
.....

What can I do to make this command an alias.

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24601 avatar
in flag
24601
Your reference is from SO. Why not ask the question there? Generic programming questions are usually handled well there and unless ubuntu specific a better resource to use.
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cn flag
glenn jackman
The perl bit can be shorter (perhaps simpler?) -- `perl -ne 's/.+\.// && print'`
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avatar Ubuntu
hr flag
steeldriver

It's because the outer double quotes allow $1 to be evaluated by the shell when the alias is defined, so print $1 becomes plain print :

$ alias file-types="find . -type f | perl -ne 'print $1 if m/\.([^.\/]+)$/' | sort -u"
$ alias file-types
alias file-types='find . -type f | perl -ne '\''print  if m/\.([^.\/]+)$/'\'' | sort -u'

Probably the simplest way to fix the quoting is to backslash-escape the $:

print \$1 if m/\.([^.\/]+)$/

however I'd recommend using a shell function in place of an alias for cases like this - see for example In Bash, when to alias, when to script, and when to write a function?

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