SC2142 – ShellCheck Wiki

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Aliases can't use positional parameters. Use a function.

Problematic code:

alias archive='mv "$@" /backup'

Correct code:

archive() { mv "$@" /backup; }

Rationale:

Aliases just substitute the start of a command with something else. They therefore can't use positional parameters, such as $1. Rewrite your alias as a function.

Exceptions

If your alias ends up quoting the value, e.g. alias cut_first="awk '{print \$1}'", you can technically ignore this error. However, you should consider turning this alias into a more readable function instead: cut_first() { awk '{print $1}' "$@"; }

You can also ignore this warning if you intentionally referenced the positional parameters of its relevant context, knowing that it won't refer to the parameters of the alias itself. For example, alias whatisthis='echo "This is $0 -$-" #' will show the shell name with flags, i.e. This is dash -smi or This is bash -himBs, and is correct usage because it does not intend for $0 to reflect anything related to the whatisthis alias or its invocation.

Related resources:

• BashFaq: How can I make an alias that takes an argument?
• StackOverflow: Make a Bash alias that takes a parameter?

ShellCheck is a static analysis tool for shell scripts. This page is part of its documentation.