Why are aliases missing inside of bash command?

Question

When I run in my terminal:

alias

a list with all my aliases (defined in ~/bashrc and ~/.bash_aliases files) will be displayed on my terminal. That's nice and as expected!

But when I run:

bash -c "alias"

there is no output, so no aliases. First I thought that ~/.bashrc file is not sourced in the second case, so I ran:

bash -c ". ~/.bashrc && alias"

but, stupor, again there is no output...

Strangely enough, when I run:

bash -c ". ~/.bash_aliases && alias"

only the aliases defined in ~/.bash_aliases will be displayed.

Can someone make some light and make me understand what exactly it is happening here?

bash -c ". ~/.bashrc && alias" shows the aliases for me. Are you sure it does not work? — Bernhard, Jul 16 '14 at 19:44
@Bernhard Yep... Ubuntu 14.04, bash 4.3.11(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) — Radu Rădeanu, Jul 16 '14 at 19:47
@Bernhard I have in my .bashrc file the following code somewhere at the beginning # If not running interactively, don't do anything case $- in *i*) ;; *) return;; esac . You don't have it? ...So Cyrus answer exactly to my Q. — Radu Rădeanu, Jul 16 '14 at 20:19

Cyrus · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-16 19:39:12Z

5

You need an interactive shell for alias definitions:

bash -i -c "alias"

answered Jul 16 '14 at 19:39

Cyrus

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Well spotted! You can add also to your answer the fact that .bashrc file will return immediately if not running interactively (see this comment). – Radu Rădeanu Jul 16 '14 at 20:23

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