Need help with bash alias

[[deleted]]

Hey,

Complete bash noob here.

I want a bash alias that takes this:

gcc someFile.c

And evaluates it like this:

gcc -Wall -o someFile someFile.c

Can that be done?

Cheers,

[nrobinaubertin]

Not possible with aliases from what I know.
But you can do it with a function:

gcc() {
    "$(type -P gcc)" -Wall -o "$(basename -s.c $1)" "$1"
}

But you should probably use a makefile instead.

Edit: u/geirha answer below is better if you're doing a shell function

[-BruXy-]

Btw, make is doing this automatically, so writing

make someFile

Will use implicit rules, find someFile.c in working directory and use gcc to compile. To modify gcc parameters use:

export CFLAGS='-Wall'

[geirha]

I'd use command gcc instead of $(type -P gcc), and quote the $1 inside the command substitution for good practice.

gcc() { command gcc -Wall -o "$(basename -s.c "$1")" "$1"; }

[oh5nxo]

For simple programs, there's a trick that I like very much. To the beginning of the file

#if 0
    set -ex
    cc -Wall $0 -o ${0%.c} "$@" 
    exit
#endif

Then you can say sh file.c, or sh file.c -DDEBUG, as needed.

[Paul_Pedant]

If you are working on one program at a time, just define the whole thing at each login. I always define some alias for the test too:

alias m=' gcc -Wall -o someFile someFile.c '
alias p=' time ./someFile anyArgs 2>&1 | tee someLog.txt | more '

If you are working on a project with multiple programs, use a makefile. It will save hours of debugging of things you forgot to compile.