Refresh aliases and functions after defining new aliases and functions?

Question

When I define a new alias in .bash_aliases file or a new function in .bashrc file, is there some refresh command to be able immediately use the new aliases or functions without closing the terminal (in my case xfce4-terminal with a few tabs open, many files open and in the middle of the work)?

Answer 1

Sourcing the changed file will provide access to the newly written alias or function in the current terminal, for example:

source ~/.bashrc

An alternative syntax:

. ~/.bashrc

Note that if you have many instances of bash running in your terminal (you mentionned multiple tabs), you will have to run this in every instance.

Answer 2

Typing . ~/.bashrc at the command line will run .bashrc and so any functions defined in that file will be created.

.bashrc itself will then also call and run .bash_aliases (if it exists) if .bashrc has this code in it:

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
    . ~/.bash_aliases
fi

whereas using . ~/.bash_aliases alone (at the command line for example) will just try and run .bash_aliases without involving .bashrc and will give an error if the file doesn't exist (hence the file check test when in .bashrc).

Answer 3

Sometimes you will want to turn an alias into a function, but when you source the bashrc file, a weird error may occur:

. ~/.bashrc
bash: /home/username/.bashrc: line 38: syntax error near unexpected token `('
bash: /home/username/.bashrc: line 38: `hello_world() {'

This may be happening because the alias name is clashing with the name of the newly defined function. As far as I know, to avoid this one needs to unalias everything, then source the bashrc file:

bash-4.3 $
unalias -a && . $HOME/.bashrc