bash alias to create folder and move file

Question

I am trying to create a bash alias to do the following:

1. create a folder (with the current date as the folder name)
2. move (or copy, either is fine with me) a file from the current folder into the new folder.

The filename is passed to the alias as a variable. E.g., my-alias file.txt

Here are a few of the ways I've tried to go about it (although I've tried quite a few more variations):

alias my-alias="mkdir -v -p '$(date +%F)-List' && cp $1 './$(date +%F)-List/$1' && cd '$(date +%F)-List'"

alias my-alias="mkdir -v -p '$(date +%F)-List' && cp $1 ./$(date +%F)-List/$1 && cd '$(date +%F)-List'"

alias my-alias="mkdir -v -p '$(date +%F)-List' && cd '$(date +%F)-List' && cp ../$1 ./$1"

I've tried many ways of writing the command, and none work.

What am I over looking?

This is on Mac OS which should be the same as most other Linux environments.

UPDATE: WHERE I WENT WRONG

I've realised where I was getting confused. I have a lot of aliases set up that "appear" to receive arguments. I set them up a long time ago (some years ago). I now realise that the aliases only seem to receive the arguments because an alias can process whatever follows it when entered on command line. But it will only process those "arguments" if they are at the end of the command string the alias refers to, and in the same order. So once I started trying to shuffle the arguments around in my aliases command string, the alias would break. So yes, the best approach is to use a function.

Answer 1

If you must use alias, here's one that works by using -t to specify the destination directory before the actual argument for the file being moved:

alias my-alias="mkdir \$(date +%F); mv -t \$(date +%F)"

Works on Linux, I don't have a MacOS machine to test with though.

Answer 2

Use a function instead of an alias. This is pretty much always the answer if you run into trouble getting an alias to work. Especially if you're trying to use arguments (e.g. $1), since aliases don't really take arguments.

Also, you should pretty much always put double-quotes around parameter and variable references (i.e. "$1" instead of just $1). And don't run date multiple times, since it's possible (if improbable) you'll get different results; run it once and store the result in a variable. Try this:

my-function() {
    local subdir="$(date +%F)-List"
    mkdir -v -p "$subdir" &&
        cp "$1" "$subdir/$1" &&
        cd "$subdir"
}

Answer 3

As the answers to the other questions indicate: Aliases are just not good at handling parameters. You can even see that:

param=foo; do something with "$param"

That is how parameters work: First (both in time and in the command line) you set them, then you use them. In contrast to that:

<alias string with several commands to be expanded> <parameter>

The parameter can be a parameter to the last command in the alias. That is not what you need.

You can do this with an alias by building it as a single command from the shell's perspective but it is questionable whether that is a useful approach:

alias testalias='bash -c "echo \$1; echo \$1-" bash'
$ testalias foo
foo
foo-

One argument against it is that the quoting is complicated. Even I got that wrong first.

Answer 4

You need to create a function. mkdir -v -p '$(date +%F)-List' will only get evaluated at the time the alias was created