Table of Contents (3.3.22)

# Using aliases

## What are aliases?

Aliases are an easy way to create shortcuts for commonly-typed commands, or to set defaults for commands.

## Defining aliases

Command aliases can be defined in the `[ALIASES]` section of your `breezy.conf` file. Aliases start with the alias name, then an equal sign, then a command fragment. Here’s an example ALIASES section:

    [ALIASES]
    recentlog=log -r-3..-1
    ll=log --line -r-10..-1
    commit=commit --strict
    diff=diff --diff-options -p

Here are the explanations of the examples above:

> - The first alias makes a new `recentlog` command that shows the logs for the last three revisions

> - The `ll` alias shows the last 10 log entries in line format.

> - the `commit` alias sets the default for commit to refuse to commit if new files in the tree are not recognized.

> - the `diff` alias adds the coveted -p option to diff

## Using the aliases

The aliases defined above would be used like so:

    % brz recentlog
    % brz ll
    % brz commit
    % brz diff

## Rules for aliases

> - You can override a portion of the options given in an alias by specifying the new part on the command-line. For example, if you run `lastlog -r-5..`, you will only get five line-based log entries instead of 10. Note that all boolean options have an implicit inverse, so you can override the commit alias with `commit --no-strict`.

> - Aliases can override the standard behaviour of existing commands by giving an alias name that is the same as the original command. For example, default commit is changed with `commit=commit --strict`.

> - Aliases cannot refer to other aliases. In other words making a `lastlog` alias and referring to it with a `ll` alias will not work. This includes aliases that override standard commands.

> - Giving the `--no-aliases` option to the brz command will tell it to ignore aliases for that run. For example, running `brz --no-aliases commit` will perform a standard commit instead, not do a `commit --strict`.