Suffix aliases in bash

Question

Suffix aliases are the only reason I'm considering to switch to ZSH but I want to stick with bash. So is it possible to have something like suffix aliases in bash?

For those that doesn't know what a suffix alias is, the following in ZSH

$ alias -s cpp=vi
$ filename.cpp

will run vi with filename.cpp as the first argument.

Note that something like xdg-open or gnome-open is not sufficient. I want bash to execute a command when a file name is entered.

Completion is quite important to me. Therefore if the beginning of a filename is typed then it would be nice if the rest of the filename would be completed when the TAB key is pressed.

Answer 1

You can build one using the new command_not_found_handle() function. Getting the full ability of the zsh suffix alias would take more work than my simple example here; but my simple example might be sufficient for your needs:

$ command_not_found_handle() { if [[ $1 =~ .*.cpp ]]; then vi $1 ; elif [[ $1 =~ .*.java ]]; then cat $1 ; fi ; }
$ splice.cpp  # started vi on splice.cpp
$ Year.java
import java.util.Scanner;

class Year {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Scanner yearenter = new Scanner(System.in); 
        System.out.println("Enter year ");
        int year = yearenter.nextInt();     
        System.out.print("Year " + year + " is ..");
        if (year % 400!=0 || year % 4 != 0 && year % 100==0)
            System.out.println(" not a leapyear"); 
        else
            System.out.println(" a leapyear"); 

    }    
} 
$ 

Here's the function expanded enough to be legible:

command_not_found_handle()
{
    if [[ $1 =~ .*.cpp ]]
    then
        vi "$1"
    elif [[ $1 =~ .*.java ]]
    then
        cat "$1"
    fi
}

Extend it as you see fit -- each =~ is a regular expression match, so feel free to use whatever regular expressions you want.

Note that this conflicts with the command-not-found Debian and Ubuntu packages, so you may need to uninstall or otherwise unconfined this package for reliable results. (Just make sure this function is defined in your own ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile file after the system-wide /etc/bash* files are included, and it should just work.)