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I have written some scripts and stored them in my ~/bin folder. I'm already able to run them just by calling their title during a shell session. However, they aren't running interactively (I mean, my ~/.bashrc aliases are not loaded).

Is there a way to mark them to run interactively by default? Or must I source ~/.bashrc inside of them to use any aliases defined there?

Other alternatives are welcome!

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    Do you want to make them run "interactively" or do you want them to load ~/.bashrc by default? Because interactive shells come with some surprises, like ignoring SIGTERM
    – user313992
    Commented Feb 24, 2020 at 16:57
  • By now, I'm actually just looking for a way to use bashrc's aliases in the scripts even when call them through bin reference
    – artu-hnrq
    Commented Feb 25, 2020 at 2:56
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    Consider changing your aliases into shell functions. Unlike aliases, functions are available when the shell is noninteractive. Functions aren't particularly more complex than aliases to write. alias hw='echo hello world' vs hw() { echo hello world; }
    – kojiro
    Commented Feb 25, 2020 at 13:17
  • Well, I've tested here, but without use -i flag, bashrc functions are not loaded just like its aliases
    – artu-hnrq
    Commented Feb 25, 2020 at 15:58
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    @ArthurHenriqueDellaFraga then you better shopt -s expand_aliases; . ~/.bashrc at the beginning of your script (~as in the non-accepted answer). You still have to modify a script to change its shebang, and as I already said, the interactive mode comes with some changes in behaviour which are not desirable in a shell script. And, as @kojiro said, better use functions instead of aliases. Aliases only have advantages when used in an real interactive shell, I cannot think of any reason to use them in a script.
    – user313992
    Commented Feb 27, 2020 at 5:18

2 Answers 2

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If you add the -i option to your hashbang(s) it will specify that the script runs in interactive mode.

#!/bin/bash -i

Alternatively you could call the scripts with that option:

bash -i /path/to/script.sh
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Sourcing your .bashrc is not a good idea. You could create a .bash_alias file with your alias and then source that file in your script and use shopt

something like:

shopt -s expand_aliases
source ~/.bash_alias

Bash man page states:

Aliases are not expanded when the shell is not interactive, unless the expand_aliases shell option is set using shopt (see the descrip‐ tion of shopt under SHELL BUILTIN COMMANDS below).

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