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This PR creates a draft lesson for how to customize the bash
environment with aliases and .bashrc, .bash_profile, and .bash_logout
files.  I also added a discussion on customizing bash prompts.  I
tried to keep this lesson relatively concise.  This lesson will
probably need some checking and a test run to make sure everything
works alright.
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namurphy committed Oct 2, 2018
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---
title: Aliases and the .bashrc
teching: 5
title: Aliases and bash customization
teaching: 10 minutes
exercises: 0
questions:
- "How to customize shell environment"
- How do I customize my bash environment?
objectives:
- "FIXME"
- Create aliases.
- Add customizations to the `.bashrc` and `.bash_profile` files.
- Change the prompt in a bash environment.
keypoints:
- "FIXME"
---
- Aliases are used to create shortcuts or abbreviations
- The `.bashrc` and `.bash_profile` files allow us to customize our
bash environment.
- The `PS1` system variable can be changed to customize your bash
prompt.

## The .bash_profile, .bash_logout, and .bashrc files
---

Bash allows us to customize our environments to fill our own
particular needs.

## Aliases

FIXME
Sometimes we need to use long commands that have to be typed over and
over again. Fortunately, the `alias` command allows us to create
shortcuts for these long commands.

As an example, let's create aliases for going up one, two, or three
directories.

~~~
alias up='cd ..'
alias upup='cd ../..'
alias upupup='cd ../../..'
~~~
{: .bash}

Let's try these commands out.

~~~
cd /usr/local/bin
upup
pwd
~~~
{: .bash}

~~~
/usr
~~~
{ .output}

We can also remove a shortcut with `unalias`.

~~~
unalias upupup
~~~
{: .bash}

If we create one of these aliases in a bash session, they will only
last until the end of that session. Fortunately, bash allows us to
specify customizations that will work whenever we begin a new bash
session.

## Bash customization files

Bash environments can be customized by adding commands to the
`.bashrc`, `.bash_profile`, and `.bash_logout` files in our home
directory. The `.bashrc` file is executed whenever entering
interactive non-login shells whereas `.bash_profile` is executed for
login shells. If the `.bash_logout` file exists, then it will be run
after exiting a shell session.

Let's add the above commands to our `.bashrc` file.

~~~
echo "alias up='cd ..'" >> ~/.bashrc
tail -n 1 ~/.bashrc
~~~
{: .bash}

~~~
alias up='cd ..'
~~~
{: .output}

We can execute the commands in `.bashrc` using `source`

~~~
source ~/.bashrc
cd /usr/local/bin
up
pwd
~~~
{: .bash}

~~~
/usr/local
~~~
{: .local}

Having to add customizations to two files can be cumbersome. It we
would like to always use the customizations in our `.bashrc` file,
then we can add the following lines to our `.bash_profile` file.

~~~
if [ -f $HOME/.bashrc ]; then
source $HOME/.bashrc
fi
~~~
{: .bash}

## Customizing your prompt

We can also customize our bash prompt by setting the `PS1` system
variable. To set our prompt to be `$ `, then we can run the command

~~~
export PS1="$ "
~~~
{: .bash}

To set the prompt to `$ ` for all bash sessions, add this line to the
end of `.bashrc`.

Further [bash prompt
customizations](https://www.howtogeek.com/307701/how-to-customize-and-colorize-your-bash-prompt)
are possible. To have our prompt be `username@hostname[directory]: `,
we would set

~~~
export PS1="\u@\h[\W]: "
~~~
{: .bash}

where `\u` represents username, `\h` represents hostname, and `\W`
represents the current directory.

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