Creating Custom Command Aliases¶

rbt can be configured to add command aliases. The ALIASES value in .reviewboardrc can be added to allow for command aliasing. It is a dictionary where the keys are the alias names and the value is the command that will be executed.

Aliases will only be executed when an rbt command is executed that rbt does not recognize and when rbt-<commandname> does not exist in the path. Aliases are case-sensitive.

For example, consider the following aliases:

ALIASES = {
    'post-this': 'post HEAD',
    'push': '!git push && rbt close $1'
}

The following commands are equivalent:

$ rbt post-this
$ rbt post HEAD

As are the following:

$ rbt push 3351
$ git push && rbt close 3351

Types of Aliases¶

There are two types of aliases: aliases for other rbt commands and system aliases.

Aliases For Other rbt Commands¶

These aliases allow short forms for frequently used rbt commands with parameter substitution.

An alias of the form cmd is equivalent to calling rbt cmd. This will launch another instance of rbt and therefore can be used to reference other aliases or commands of the form rbt-<commandname>.

ALIASES = {
    'post-this': 'post HEAD',
}

System Command Aliases¶

System aliases are aliases that begin with !. Everything after the ! will be passed to the shell for execution after going through parameter substitution.

These aliases are more flexible because they are executed by the shell. However, since they are more powerful it is possible to write an alias that will destroy data.

ALIASES = {
    'push': '!git push && rbt close $1',
}

Positional Parameter Substitution¶

Aliases in rbt supports inserting bash-like variables representing positional arguments into aliases. Positional variables take the form $1 (which corresponds to the first argument), $2 (which corresponds to the second argument), etc., and $* (which corresponds to all arguments).

If a positional variable is specified and not enough arguments were specified, it will be replaced with an empty argument.

If no parameter substitution is performed, all supplied arguments will be appended to the command when it is executed. Non-numeric variables are not replaced in the parameter and, if the alias is a system command alias, will be handled by the shell.