How to make an alias of a command which accepts an argument and is executed on background?

Question

I want to make alias to open file with GUI editor on background from command line.

I tried:

alias new_command="editor_path &"
new_command file

But it just open editor without loading the file.

Answer 1

The & is ending the command, so it is not seeing your file argument. You can't use alias if you want to substitute the filename string into the command with the ampersand on the end.

From the bash manpage:

   There  is no mechanism for using arguments in the replacement text.  If
   arguments are needed, a shell function should be  used  (see  FUNCTIONS
   below).

Consider creating a shell function:

function new_command
{
editor_path "$1" &
}