OpenBSD - How does one set an alias?

Question

I am running the latest OpenBSD and I cannot figure out how to set a simple alias, something along the lines of cls=clear. I've tried putting it in ~/.cshrc and in ~/.profile. I've tried:

alias cls clear
alias cls=clear
alias cls='clear'
alias cls="clear"

Nothing works.

On another but perhaps related note: If echo $SHELL tells me I'm using /bin/ksh, why a ~/.cshrc instead of ~/.kshrc?

Answer 1

.cshrc is copied over from /etc/skel because it exists there and that's what happens to the contents of /etc/skel on (most) user account additions. However that's totally unrelated to sh or ksh; .cshrc exists due to csh being installed and supported since the 2BSD days (a tradition, at this point).

.profile is only read by login shells, so commands there will not be picked up by new shells that are not login shells:

valen$ cd
valen$ ed .profile
215
a
echo .profile was run
.
wq
237
valen$ exec ksh
valen$ exec ksh -l
.profile was run
valen$ 

The ksh(1) manual has docs on setting an ENV environment variable that non-login instances of ksh will read:

valen$ ed .profile
237
d
a
export ENV=$HOME/.profile
echo now with ENV set
.
wq
263
valen$ exec ksh
valen$ exec ksh -l
now with ENV set
now with ENV set
valen$ exec ksh
now with ENV set
valen$ 

Given the double-read of ~/.profile with export ENV=$HOME/.profile set, it may instead be better to have a different file, such as ~/.kshrc as recommended by the manual that contains your custom aliases:

valen$ cat .profile
PATH=$HOME/bin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/games
export PATH HOME TERM
export ENV=$HOME/.kshrc
valen$ cat .kshrc
alias cls=clear
valen$ exec ksh -l
valen$ alias | grep cls
cls=clear
valen$