How can I make an alias that takes an argument?

You can't. Aliases in bash are extremely rudimentary, and not really suitable to any serious purpose. The bash man page even says so explicitly:

Use a function instead. For example,

settitle() {
  case "$TERM" in *xterm*|*rxvt*)
    printf '\e]2;%s\a' "$1"
  esac
}

Oh, by the way: aliases are not allowed in scripts. They're only allowed in interactive shells, and that's simply because users would cry too loudly if they were removed altogether. If you're writing a script, always use a function instead.

BashFAQ/080 (last edited 2020-04-30 07:20:44 by c-73-202-78-216)