An alias whose action depends on the name used to invoke it

[vefatica]

I never thought of doing this until today. It works. I must now think of a use for it.

v:\> alias z*ero `echo %@repeat[0,%@len[%0]]`

v:\> z
0

v:\> ze
00

v:\> zer
000

v:\> zero
0000

A more typical use might be something like this.

v:\> alias x*y `if %0 == x (echo foo) else (echo bar)`

v:\> x
foo

v:\> xy
bar

 

[ohenryx]

Unix (and Linux) have used this for many years now. It used to be that "unzip" was just a link to "zip", but that no longer appears to be true. Looking at a new install of Mint, they are separate executables. But "unlz4" is still a link to "lz4". And I'm sure there are many other examples. The only difference being the default action taken, depending on how you call the executable.

 

[vefatica]

What does it have to do with links? Windows has links too. The point is that the shell can do this with one alias. I wonder if any Unix/Linux shells can do that.