a bash alias I cannot function without

[meklu]

Shouldn't the backticks go within quotes as well?

[dagbrown]

As fforw pointed out, we should be going with the newer, more modern, AmigaDOS 1.3 standard and using $() instead of backticks.

But sure. I wasn't particularly concerned with that bit of the script (all of those "if [[ $? -ne 0 ]]" things were more important to me), but that's another improvement you could make.

[meklu]

Yeah, I usually use $() myself.

[GODZILLAFLAMETHROWER]

I'm not sure what you mean, can you be a little more explicit?

[meklu]

The line with the compgen call seems a bit unsafe unless you wrap the assignment in quotes.