Outputting PID of Rails server(s) with ps aux | grep - breaks when put into an alias?

Question

I'm trying to create an alias for an unwieldy command I'm using to output the PID and some other information about two rails servers I have running.

When I simply run the command in terminal (over ssh):

vagrant@Railsvr:~$ ps aux | grep rails | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2, $12, $13, $14, $15}' 

I get the desired info:

3266 bin/rails server -dp 3000
3383 bin/rails s -dp 4000

But when I put it into an alias in ~/.bash_aliases (which is included in ~/.bashrc)

alias findrails_pid="ps aux | grep rails | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2, $12, $13, $14, $15}'"

and source:

. ~/.bashrc

It breaks...I get:

vagrant@Railsvr:~$ findrails_pid 
awk: {print , 2, 3, 4, 5}
awk:        ^ syntax error

It is as though the $n, which represent columns from the ps aux command, are being ripped out for some reason. This is the first alias I have tried to create - am I missing something?

Not sure if this matters - system is an ubuntu precise32 guest box hosted by libvirt-kvm on a Debian 8.1 host.

Answer 1

A function would probably be better, yes, but in this case the problem probably is because you are using double quotes around it. The $ variables get expanded before the assignment to the alias. You can use a single quote on the outside instead, or, because you already have single quotes, escape the $ with \:

alias findrails_pid="ps aux | grep rails | grep -v grep | awk '{print \$2, \$12, \$13, \$14, \$15}'"