Problem While Creating an Alias (Solved)

[Lady Fitzgerald]

This is not my first alias so I'm baffled why I can't get this particular one to work.

First, in the terminal, I enter nano ~/.bashrc, then go down to the bottom of the page where I've created my other aliases:

All of these are working just fine. However, when I add the following line alias sc3='dpkg -l | grep '^rc' | awk '{print $2}' | sudo xargs dpkg --purge', then hit CTRL o, ENTER, and CTRL x, then close and reopen the terminal, I get this:

After removing the alias I tried to create, then try to run alias sc3='dpkg -l | grep '^rc' | awk '{print $2}' | sudo xargs dpkg --purge' by itself in the terminal, I get this:

Obviously, I'm doing something wrong (I can hear a collective "no duh" from everyone) but the error message may as well be in Sanskrit for me.

Code: Select all

jeannie@Laptop1:~$ inxi -Fxxxrz
System:    Host: Laptop1 Kernel: 5.4.0-91-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.5.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.4.8 
           wm: muffin 4.4.4 dm: LightDM 1.26.0 Distro: Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: System76 product: Serval v: serw11-b serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: System76 model: Serval v: serw11-b serial: <filter> UEFI: American Megatrends v: 1.05.25-1 date: 07/10/2019 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 58.9 Wh condition: 80.7/79.9 Wh (101%) volts: 16.0/14.8 model: Notebook BAT type: Li-ion 
           serial: <filter> status: Unknown 
           Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse M525 serial: <filter> charge: 100% rechargeable: yes 
           status: Discharging 
CPU:       Topology: 8-Core model: Intel Core i7-9700K bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Kaby Lake rev: D L2 cache: 12.0 MiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 57600 
           Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/4900 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 4: 800 5: 800 6: 800 7: 800 8: 800 
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: nvidia v: 460.39 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:1f51 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: nvidia unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,nouveau,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz, 1920x1080~144Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce RTX 2060/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 460.39 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 200 Series PCH HD Audio vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 
           chip ID: 8086:a2f0 
           Device-2: NVIDIA vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.1 chip ID: 10de:10f9 
           Device-3: N/A type: USB driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid bus ID: 1-5.4.3:9 chip ID: 21b4:0082 
           serial: <filter> 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-91-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: alx v: kernel port: d000 
           bus ID: 6e:00.0 chip ID: 1969:e0b1 
           IF: enp110s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel Wireless-AC 9260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: d000 bus ID: 71:00.0 chip ID: 8086:2526 
           IF: wlp113s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 11.47 TiB used: 8.09 TiB (70.6%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 970 PRO 512GB size: 476.94 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 
           serial: <filter> rev: 1B2QEXP7 scheme: GPT 
           ID-2: /dev/nvme1n1 model: Sabrent Rocket Q size: 7.28 TiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> rev: RKT30Q.2 
           scheme: GPT 
           ID-3: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 870 QVO 8TB size: 7.28 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 2B6Q 
           scheme: GPT 
           ID-4: /dev/sdb vendor: Samsung model: SSD 860 PRO 4TB size: 3.73 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 1B6Q 
           scheme: GPT 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 452.31 GiB used: 31.76 GiB (7.0%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 15.91 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 49.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 46 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 1332 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list 
           1: deb http://liveusb.info/multisystem/depot all main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
           1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com tricia main upstream import backport
           2: deb http://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu bionic main restricted universe multiverse
           3: deb http://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates main restricted universe multiverse
           4: deb http://mirror.enzu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports main restricted universe multiverse
           5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ bionic-security main restricted universe multiverse
           6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ bionic partner
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/oguzhaninan-stacer-bionic.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/system76-dev-stable-bionic.list 
           1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/system76-dev/stable/ubuntu bionic main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teejeetech-aptik.list 
           1: deb https://packages.teejeetech.com/aptik/S7tBVjLBzw stable main
Info:      Processes: 320 Uptime: 1h 18m Memory: 15.46 GiB used: 1.82 GiB (11.8%) Init: systemd v: 237 runlevel: 5 Compilers: 
           gcc: 7.5.0 alt: 7 Shell: bash v: 4.4.20 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.32 
jeannie@Laptop1:~$ 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

More on this... I got that troublesome command from Damien1307 a while back in this post viewtopic.php?f=90&t=334762&p=1918451&h ... p#p1918451 but, due to my ADHD addled brain, "enhanced" by Senioritis and Old Timer's Disease, when I was running all the commands, one after the other, all the text that flashed onto the screen turned into a blur so I missed that this command was throwing an error message until I tried to put into an alias and it kept getting broken. I would ask Damien but, apparently, he has left the forums.

[rene]

It's merely the quoting. I.e., alias sc3='...' --- but that opening ' is in fact closed by the ' that should be opening '^rc' (and the closing ' there then actually opens the part until awk ' and so on, i.e. alll effed up).

In this case you do want single quotes for the awk '{print $2}' so as to defend against shell interpretation of $2 so while general advise would be to replace the inner single quotes with double quotes, in this case you want to go the other way around and replace the single outer quotes with double ones.

Code: Select all

alias sc3="dpkg -l | grep '^rc' | awk '{print $2}' | sudo xargs dpkg --purge"

(not looked at the command itself).

[spamegg]

(ah someone else beat me to it)

There is an issue with the alias, because both the start/end of the alias is using single quotes '...', but also there are single quotes inside the command itself, so it causes a parsing issue. Try using double quotes for the start/end of the alias, using single quotes for the command itself, only inside the double-quotes:

Code: Select all

alias sc3="sudo dpkg -l | grep '^rc' | awk '{print $2}' | sudo xargs dpkg --purge"

I tested some other aliases using double-quotes and they work fine.

The response you get from running the command un-aliased is actually normal. I run the same command regularly (un-aliased), so I know. I get the same response quite regularly.

When the earlier part of the command does not find anything to be cleaned up (residual configurations for uninstalled packages), which is often, if you keep your Mint clean and neat like me, which I guess you do, then basically, there is nothing for xargs to pass to the dpkg --purge command.

The default place to keep aliases is ~/.bash_aliases although this is more of an organizational preference. I'd recommend moving all your aliases there.

[rene]

(not looked at the command itself).

By now also looked at the command itself and you actually as part of an alias and now due to the double quotes also still need to escape that $ in $2. That is.

Code: Select all

alias sc3="dpkg -l | grep '^rc' | awk '{print \$2}' | sudo xargs dpkg --purge"

[Lady Fitzgerald]

(ah someone else beat me to it)

There is an issue with the alias, because both the start/end of the alias is using single quotes '...', but also there are single quotes inside the command itself, so it causes a parsing issue. Try using double quotes for the start/end of the alias, using single quotes for the command itself, only inside the double-quotes:

Code: Select all

alias sc3="sudo dpkg -l | grep '^rc' | awk '{print $2}' | sudo xargs dpkg --purge"

I tested some other aliases using double-quotes and they work fine...

OK, that makes sense. I tried replacing the single quotes (actually, apostrophes) in SC1 and SC2 with double quotes (actually quotation marks but now I'm just being pedantic; I blame lack of sleep) and they continued to work just fine and dandy.

...The response you get from running the command un-aliased is actually normal. I run the same command regularly (un-aliased), so I know. I get the same response quite regularly.

When the earlier part of the command does not find anything to be cleaned up (residual configurations for uninstalled packages), which is often, if you keep your Mint clean and neat like me, which I guess you do, then basically, there is nothing for xargs to pass to the dpkg --purge command...

OK, that actually made sense to me. Mayhap that is the real reason I never noticed it before since today, unlike before, I ran that command quite a few times today.

...The default place to keep aliases is ~/.bash_aliases although this is more of an organizational preference. I'd recommend moving all your aliases there.

I have no clue how I would move them plus I'm a firm believer in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of thought" so I'm going to leave well enough alone before I can break something (plus I have a back problem; there is a yellow streak running down it ).

(not looked at the command itself).

By now also looked at the command itself and you actually as part of an alias and now due to the double quotes also still need to escape that $ in $2. That is.

Code: Select all

alias sc3="dpkg -l | grep '^rc' | awk '{print \$2}' | sudo xargs dpkg --purge"

I took a slightly different approach and, instead of creating sc3, I added the "troublesome" command (with your modification) to SC2 where I originally tried to park it. this is what it looks like:

When I run sc2 now, I get this:

Based on what spamegg wrote, everything is now working like it should be.


I originally wanted the commands in sc1 and sc2 to reside in just one alias but when I tried that, even though I opened the Terminal to full screen, the resulting line was too long and when the commands wrapped around to the next line, the previous line disappeared and everything went pear shaped and south without even a hand basket. I thought about putting together the text of the alias in Writer, then copying and pasting it in but, by that time, I was getting tired and frustrated so, instead, I tried putting sc1 and sc2 into another alias named sc. Sonuvagun, it worked (why not? I frequently make short cuts to shortcuts--long story ). Here is what I get when I run sc:

Code: Select all

jeannie@Laptop1:~$ sc
[sudo] password for jeannie:            
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 58 not upgraded.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 58 not upgraded.
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dpkg: error: --purge needs at least one package name argument

Type dpkg --help for help about installing and deinstalling packages [*];
Use 'apt' or 'aptitude' for user-friendly package management;
Type dpkg -Dhelp for a list of dpkg debug flag values;
Type dpkg --force-help for a list of forcing options;
Type dpkg-deb --help for help about manipulating *.deb files;

Options marked [*] produce a lot of output - pipe it through 'less' or 'more' !
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Deleted archived journal /var/log/journal/9863d8c99ecd4a098145e3f0d000cc51/system@a397cfbc38834a2e9549543a6b8a7929-0000000000000f19-0005d22fdbed1f13.journal (8.0M).
Deleted archived journal /var/log/journal/9863d8c99ecd4a098145e3f0d000cc51/user-1000@554ec78d633546888a8e8f38ab741a8c-0000000000000f23-0005d22fdf811c24.journal (8.0M).
Vacuuming done, freed 16.0M of archived journals from /var/log/journal/9863d8c99ecd4a098145e3f0d000cc51.
jeannie@Laptop1:~$ 

Thanks for the help, guys! I'm going to mark this solved and take a nap.