handy bash alias
2005-04-07Often I run some command that's going to take a long time to finish, like
make solver
and when it's done I want to run some other command, like
./solver < problem.1
but I only want to run that second command if the first command (the make
in this example) succeeded. If I'd thought ahead, I could have run this in the first place:
make solver && ./solver < problem.1
But I didn't. So I have this handy bash
alias:
alias +='(exit $?) && '
Which gives me a similar effect. I run the first command (the make
), and while it's running I type in a plus followed by the second command:
+ ./solver < problem.1
If the first command finishes, the second command will run. Otherwise, the second command will be ignored.
Note that this only works if the first command doesn't read from standard input.