Bash: Use an alias in a variable

Question

I am writing a bash script that runs each of its arguments as a command. This works for commands in my PATH, but not for aliases. I can directly call an alias in the script, but I can't call an alias that has been passed as an argument.

The problem (I assume) is that aliases are expanded before variables. Is there a way to run aliases from a variable?

Sample script:

#!/bin/bash
# File: runall

shopt -s expand_aliases
source ~/.aliases

while (( "$#" )); do
    $1
    shift
done

runall "echo test" works, but runall "myalias" gives runall: line 8: myalias: command not found

Answer 1

After some testing, I have concluded the following:

• Aliases only work in interactive mode (add -i to the shebang).
• Aliases are not evaluated when they come from an interpreted source (in this case, the variable.
• You can get bash to use the alias with eval $1. Note that evaling anything created with a variable is dangerous, but since the whole point of the script requires arbitrary execution, I won't make too big a deal out of that.

From the bash man page:

Aliases are not expanded when the shell is not interactive, unless the expand_aliases shell option is set using shopt (see the description of shopt under SHELL BUILTIN COMMANDS below).

So you could add shopt -s expand_aliases instead of -i.

Also,

Aliases are expanded when a command is read, not when it is executed.

Since variables are not expanded before the command is read, they will not be expanded further using the alias.

Answer 2

I had a similar problem and managed to solve my issue by turning my aliases to functions, as described on this site, which worked for me.

e.g.

alias lsd="ls -lash"

to

function lsd() { ls -lash; }