Alias for Windows

- 简体中文

A powerful Windows command line alias utility for managing command aliases, environment variables,
and output formatting through a configuration file.,

🚀 Motivation
- On Windows, creating symbolic links (symlinks) for .exe files often fails because the required .dll dependencies cannot be found. This issue does not occur on Linux or macOS.
- The PATH environment variable is too long, and repeatedly modifying it is cumbersome.

✨ Problems Solved
- Hardcoded Arguments: Common commands are bundled with their fixed arguments, eliminating the need to type them repeatedly.
- Simplified PATH: Drastically reduces the length of the PATH environment variable. After reinstalling your system, you only need to add a single directory to PATH.
- Version Management: When command-line tools are updated, you no longer need to manually update version numbers embedded in file paths.
- Linux-style Aliases: Supports Linux-like alias configuration syntax for seamless compatibility with WSL shell environments.
- IDE Compatibility: Some IDEs do not support aliases defined via doskey or batch scripts (.bat), but they do accept direct .exe paths.
- Enhanced Utilities: Automatically adds dynamic timestamps to commands like ping for better logging and debugging.
- Encoding Fix: Handles garbled output from certain cross-platform CLI tools when they output non-English text.

Features

• Alias Management: Define command aliases through configuration files to simplify common commands
• Environment Variables: Configure dedicated environment variables for each alias
• Wildcard Support: Automatic wildcard path resolution (C:\Tool*\app*.exe)
• High-Performance Caching: Use SQLite to cache resolved paths for significantly improved performance
• Output Prefix: Support custom output prefixes, including dynamic timestamp formats, Supports parameter matching (macOS use [command] | xlib prefix "%T %F ")
• Charset Conversion: Support command output charset conversion (e.g., UTF-8 to GBK), Supports parameter matching
• Exec Mode: Support process replacement mode with immediate or delayed exit options
• Symlink Support: Automatically create symlinks for aliases for direct invocation
• Recursion Protection: Detect and prevent infinite recursive alias calls

Installation

Building from Source

• Project dependencies:

  • dotnet sdk 8+
  • Visual Studio 2022 build tools
    • You can use xlib.cmd vsi core 2022 -i to automatically install Visual Studio 2022 without IDE.
      Or modify VC_VARS_PATH in build.cmd to the vs2002 installation directory.

• Build the project: Simply run build.cmd.

After building, the executable file will be located in the bin/publish/ directory.

Manual Installation

1. Copy alias.exe to any directory in the system's PATH environment variable
2. Ensure the directory has write permissions (for creating symlinks)

Quick Start

1. Create Configuration File

The configuration file is located at %USERPROFILE%\.alias and will be created automatically on first run.

# Run alias.exe to create configuration file and open it
alias -e

2. Configure Aliases

Edit the configuration file and add alias definitions:

# Use wildcards (automatically match latest version)
alias java='"C:\Program Files\java*\bin\java.exe"'

# Disable color to fix diff garbled output
GIT_CONFIG_PARAMETERS="'color.diff=never'"
CHARSET_CONV='/diff/ && "UTF-8,GBK"'
alias git='"D:\Tools\MinGit-*-busybox-*-bit\cmd\git.exe"'

# Alias with arguments
alias node='"C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe" --use-openssl-ca'

# Add a dynamic timestamp prefix to ping operations, along with the process ID.
PREFIX='/[^\.]\.[^\.]/ && "PING: %F %T %N %PID "'
alias ping=ping.exe

# Set environment variable, exit alias process after 5 seconds while keeping idea process
JAVA_HOME="C:\Program Files\java\jdk-17"
# EXEC is mutually exclusive with PREFIX and CHARSET_CONV.
EXEC=5
alias idea='D:\ideaIC-20*.win\bin\idea.bat'

3. Use Aliases

# Call through alias, will create target symlink
alias git clone https://github.com/binave/alias.git

# Use alias directly
git clone https://github.com/binave/alias.git

Configuration

The configuration file uses Linux shell-like syntax to define aliases:

# Temporary alias definition, actually calls doskey, only valid for current session
alias <name>='<command>'

# Global environment variables (effective for all subsequent aliases)
export VAR1=1

# Temporary environment variable (only effective for next alias)
VAR=value
alias name='command'

# Prefix configuration (with conditional judgment)
PREFIX='/\-t / && "# %F %T "' # Add timestamp prefix only when argument contains '-t'
alias name='command -t arg1'
PREFIX='# %F %T %N '          # Add prefix to all output
alias name='command'

# Charset conversion, convert UTF-8 output to GBK only when argument contains 'diff'
CHARSET_CONV='/diff/ && "UTF-8,GBK"'
alias name='command diff'

# Exec mode
EXEC=true                     # Exit parent process immediately, keep child process
alias name='command'
EXEC=5                        # Exit parent process after 5 seconds, keep child process
alias name='command'

# Exclude argument wildcard parsing
EXCL_ARG=1,2                  # Don't parse wildcards for arguments 1 and 2
alias name='command arg*1 arg*2'

Prefix Format

Prefix supports the following placeholders (similar to Linux date command format):

Command Line Options

# Display help information
alias -h
alias --help
alias /?

# Print cache contents (show resolved paths)
alias
alias -p
alias -p -t    # Show update timestamps

# Refresh cache (delete and rebuild)
alias -r       # Requires admin privileges or developer mode

# Edit configuration file
alias -e       # Use editor specified by ALIAS_EDITOR environment variable, default is notepad.exe

# Define temporary alias (pass through to doskey.exe)
alias name='command $*'

# Call specific alias
alias <name> [args...]

Environment Variables

Dependencies

• sqlite - Embedded database
• SQLitePCL.raw - SQLite native binding

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE file for details.

Credits

Forked from Scoop/shim, this project has been fully refactored and now differs significantly from its source in structure and functionality.