Aliases may be called like commands

Consider this example

alias sys.window.pid="pid=\$(xprop | grep PID); echo \${pid##*=}; unset pid"
alias sys.window.trace="_asroot strace -p \$(sys.window.pid)"

Use sys.window.trace to run strace on any window by point and click. This uses sys.window.pid, also an alias that returns the pid of any window by point and click.

Notice how sys.window.pid is called like a command substitution. Without the $, you'd get strace complaining that sys.window.pid is an invalid pid.

Aliases may contain loops and variables

You just have to be careful to escape the dollar sign when creating and using variables inside aliases. For example :

alias flow.tasks.list="for file in ~/NOTES/LOG/TASKS/*.flow; do echo file \$file; echo '---------------------------------------------------'; egrep -h '^\*\* \[[0-9]' \$file; echo; done | less"

This produces the following output

/home/ychaouche/NOTES/LOG/TASKS/dns.www.ibm.com.12s.flow
---------------------------------------------------
** [1] dns query taking too long
** [1.1] query time

/home/ychaouche/NOTES/LOG/TASKS/download-podcasts.flow
---------------------------------------------------
** [1] see if savefrom.net works again
** [2] search for alternatives to savefrom.net

/home/ychaouche/NOTES/LOG/TASKS/erreur-certificat.flow
---------------------------------------------------
** [1] erreur
** [2] copy-heading.flow

/home/ychaouche/NOTES/LOG/TASKS/exploration-de-la-base-roundcube.flow
---------------------------------------------------
** [1] joins
** [2] requêtes sur la table contacts
** [3] cacher le mot de pass

 alias mail.spam.report="_extract_mail_to_mail  /var/log/mail.log  | grep SPAM | _extract_clean_line"
 
 alias mail.exchange.from.outside="_extract_mail_to_mail  /var/log/mail.log  | grep -v 'mydomain.tld> ->' | _extract_clean_line"


function mail.exchange.from(){
_extract_mail_to_mail /var/log/mail.log | grep -- "$1.*->" | _extract_clean_line
}

function mail.exchange.to(){
_extract_mail_to_mail /var/log/mail.log | grep -- "->.*$1" | _extract_clean_line 
}

 alias mail.spam.report="_extract_mail_to_mail  /var/log/mail.log  | grep SPAM | _extract_clean_line"
 alias mail.exchange.from.outside="_extract_mail_to_mail  /var/log/mail.log  | grep -v 'mydomain.tld> ->' | _extract_clean_line"


function mail.exchange.from(){
_extract_mail_to_mail /var/log/mail.log | grep -- "$1.*->" | _extract_clean_line
}

function mail.exchange.to(){
_extract_mail_to_mail /var/log/mail.log | grep -- "->.*$1" | _extract_clean_line 
}