Define aliases in your shell with YAML instead of in Bash

yaml-aliases-groups.rb

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
#
# If you've got a collection of Bash aliases that just keeps growing... Consider using YAML!
#
# This version is designed to parse aliases organized under named groups in the YAML
# file, so the first level of mappings are purely semantic, and are used to keep the
# data organized and well-documented.
#
require 'pathname'
require 'yaml'
$stdout.sync = true

DATA_FILE = '~/.aliases.yml' # a YAML file of your choice
# Use of Pathname is optional, but I think it makes for particularly clean, efficient code
ALIAS_GROUPS = YAML.load_file Pathname(DATA_FILE).expand_path.realpath
# Aliases are all merged into a single Hash according to the rules of Ruby's `Hash#merge`,
# which silently overwrites duplicates. It may be a good idea to enhance this code with a
# declarative block passed to `merge` that prevents data loss or at least warns the user.
ALIASES = ALIAS_GROUPS.values.reduce &:merge
# A Bash script is produced temporarily for storing the `alias` declarations
ALIAS_FILE = '/tmp/aliases.bash'
# This code writes all of the YAML data to a file, in the format of the Bash `alias` command
File.open(ALIAS_FILE, 'w') do |f|
  ALIASES.each_pair do |alias_name, command|
    f.puts %Q[alias #{alias_name}="#{cmd}"]
  end
end
# Finally, the command is printed which your shell context evaluates to load the alias file
puts "source #{ALIAS_FILE}"
# Note: no cleanup is done for the generated Bash script, but as long as 'w' mode is used
# for file access, it can be safely overwritten indefinitely. If you try to delete the file
# immediately after printing the `source` command, it may not have time to be loaded.

yaml-aliases.rb

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
#
# If you've got a collection of Bash aliases that just keeps growing... Consider using YAML!
#
require 'pathname'
require 'yaml'
$stdout.sync = true

DATA_FILE = '~/.aliases.yml' # a YAML file of your choice
# Use of Pathname is optional, but I think it makes for particularly clean, efficient code
ALIASES = YAML.load_file Pathname(DATA_FILE).expand_path.realpath
# A Bash script is produced temporarily for storing the `alias` declarations
ALIAS_FILE = '/tmp/aliases.bash'
# This code writes all of the YAML data to a file, in the format of the Bash `alias` command
File.open(ALIAS_FILE, 'w') do |f|
  ALIASES.each_pair do |alias_name, command|
    f.puts %Q[alias #{alias_name}="#{cmd}"]
  end
end
# Finally, the command is printed which your shell context evaluates to load the alias file
puts "source #{ALIAS_FILE}"
# Note: no cleanup is done for the generated Bash script, but as long as 'w' mode is used
# for file access, it can be safely overwritten indefinitely. If you try to delete the file
# immediately after printing the `source` command, it may not have time to be loaded.

•example-aliases.yml

# These are some examples of how one would store command aliases in YAML

system:
  ls: ls -GCF                        # pretty output
  lla: ls -la                        # show file info, including invisible files
  path: echo $PATH | tr \':\' \"\n\" # readable PATH output
  qfind: find . -name                # Quickly search for a file
  
git:
  # info
  gs: git status
  gss: git status -s
  gd: git diff
  # Remotes
  rem: git remote -v
  rset: git remote set-url origin
  # add/remove files
  ga: git add
  gaa: git add -A
  # tags
  gt: git tag
  # commit
  gc: git commit -m
  amend: git commit --amend
  # pull/push
  gpull: git pull origin
  # Branches
  gb: git branch -v
  gbr: git branch -r
  gco: git checkout
  gnew: git checkout -b
  # submodules
  gsm: git submodule
  gsi: git submodule init
  gsu: git submodule update
  gclone: git clone -v --progress
  
navigation:
  ..: cd ..

I execute this script by loading it into my Bash profile as follows:

# Load aliases
$(~/.yaml-aliases-groups.rb)

Alternatively, you could omit the ‘shebang’ (the first line of the script) and just use the Ruby interpreter directly

$(ruby ~/.yaml-aliases-groups.rb)

Don’t forget that the script needs execution permission!

chmod u+x ~/.yaml-aliases-groups.rb

If you like this approach, be sure to check out how I use the same technique to define Environment variables