YJL

I use command-line a lot and sometimes a command takes time to execute. So, months ago, I started to use the following alias:

alias beeps='for i in {1..5}; do aplay -q /usr/share/sounds/generic.wav; sleep 0.5s; done'

I ran it like:

command ; beeps

I just left the command to run and came back when I heard the beeping sound. That alias was just ugly simple and did what I need: getting notified when the job is done. It's very help for running commands don't have notifications, which most command-line program wouldn't have. I just append the beeps after the commands, such as eix-sync, emerge, etc.

I updated the alias, so it would play different sounds depending on the exit status, also it retains the exit status after it plays the sound. Although, I don't think retain of exit status is really necessary, nonetheless it's not hard to implement and nice to have.

alias beeps='(BEEPS_RET=$? ; ((BEEPS_RET)) && BEEPS=error || BEEPS=generic ; for i in {1..5} ; do (aplay -q /usr/share/sounds/$BEEPS.wav &) >/dev/null ; sleep 1 ; done ; exit $BEEPS_RET)'

With pretty-print:

(
  BEEPS_RET=$?
  ((BEEPS_RET)) && BEEPS=error || BEEPS=generic
  for i in {1..5}; do
    (aplay -q /usr/share/sounds/$BEEPS.wav &) >/dev/null
    sleep 1
  done
  exit $BEEPS_RET
)

I use sub-shell to so the variables don't contaminate the current shell. This may look better by using function, but I started with alias, so continued with alias. If you wants to use function, just replace sub-shell with function, declare the variables are local, replace exit with return.

If you used to (and still) use Subversion, you may not be able to get rid of your muscle memory when you need to check the status of a Git repository. For me, one out of two times, I would type:

git st

It is hardwired in me and Mercurial (Hg) has st as a shortcut, so it gets harder to remember to type the full command when I am using Git.

Git has alias configuration to customize the environment, check out man git-config. You can create a global (meaning for all repositories) alias for status command by typing:

git config --global --add alias.st status

It adds a new entry to global Git configuration file ~/.gitconfig:

[alias]
   st = status

You can manually edit the file if you want. Instead, you can create local alias command which only be used by single repository and configuration is stored in that repository only. But for status command alias, global availability suits better.

ci is a good one to be added for commit command, the second common command for me to get error message from Git, but that's history, too.