Alias can't save forever on Mac?

Question

I want to create my own alias to make some command more simpler.I add alias ll='ls -l' in ~/.bashrc,like this:

 ANDROID_NAME=/Users/smy/Library/Android/sdk
 PYTHONPATH=/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH
 PATH=$ANDROID_NAME/platform-tools:$PYTHONPATH:$PATH

 export ANDROID_HOME
 export PYTHONPATH
 export PATH

 #alias 
 alias ll='ls -l'

when I first add this alias to this file,I execute source command,like this:

source ~/.bashrc

then in this command window,it can works,but when I create a new command window,it can't recognize the ll alias,that is when I execute ll,such error exists:

-bash: ll: command not found

when I type source ~/.bashrc,it will work.

So my question is: why the alias can't be recognized whenever I type it,why I must execute source command to make it work when new command window opened,and how I can resolve this. I'm working on mac,Anyone can teach me about this,thanks!

Answer 1

You need to use ~/.bash_profile or ~/.profile for login shells instead of ~/.bashrc. From the documentation:

When Bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable.

and:

When an interactive shell that is not a login shell is started, Bash reads and executes commands from ~/.bashrc, if that file exists.

When opening a new terminal window/tab, the shell should be opened as a login shell.