Error converting a bash function to a csh alias

Question

I am writing a csh alias so that I can use the following bash function in my csh :

function up( )
{
    LIMIT=$1
    P=$PWD
    for ((i=1; i <= LIMIT; i++))
    do
        P=$P/..
    done
    cd $P
    export MPWD=$P
}

(I stole the above bash function from here)

I have written this:

alias up 'set LIMIT=$1; set P=$PWD; set counter = LIMIT;  while[counter!=0] set counter = counter-1; P=$P/.. ; end cd $P; setenv MPWD=$P'

However, I am getting the following error:

while[counter!=0]: No match.
P=/net/devstorage/home/rghosh/..: Command not found.
end: Too many arguments.

and my script is not working as intended. I have been reading up on csh from here.

I am not an expert in csh and what I have written above is my first csh script. Please let me know what I am doing wrong.

@WilliamPursell I changed the export to setenv, but I am still getting teh same error — Chani, Jan 21 '13 at 15:21
@WilliamPursell The question is a lot different now. Can you please look into it (again)? — Chani, Jan 21 '13 at 15:36
arithmetics need the 'at-signment' ("@"); other than that, I agree with William Purlsell. Or, if you really want to use write csh aliases, you'd better read its documentation **very, very carefully**. — loreb, Jan 21 '13 at 16:15

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 16 '13 at 08:08

You can also do this

alias up 'cd `yes ".." | head -n\!* | tr "\n" "\/"`'

yes ".." will repeat the string .. indefinitely; head will truncate it to the number passed as argument while calling the alias ( !* expands to the arguments passed; similar to $@ ) and tr will convert the newlines to /.

radical7's answer seems to be more neat; but will only work for tcsh ( exactly wat you wanted ). This should work irrespective of the shell

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 25 '13 at 14:10

1

You can use the csh's repeat function

alias up 'cd `pwd``repeat \!^ echo -n /..`'

No loops needed (which is handy, because while constructs in tcsh seem very finicky)

answered Jan 25 '13 at 14:10

radical7

8,957
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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 07 '22 at 19:52

For multiple lines of code, aliases must be within single quotes, and each end of line must precede a backslash. The end of the last line must precede a single quote to delimit the end of the alias:

alias up 'set counter = $1\
set p = $cwd\
while $counter != 0\
@ counter = $counter - 1\
set p = $p/..\
end\
cd $p\
setenv mpwd $p'

By the way, variables set with set are better with the equal sign separated from the variable name and content; setenv doesn't require an equal sign; math functionality is provided by @; control structures make use of parentheses (though aren't required for simple tests); use $cwd to print the current working directory.

If experiencing issues with the command editor/history, add `kill -INT $$` to the end of the alias. For numbers, control structures are better used with the greater than (>; >=) and less than (<; <=) operators: `while ( $counter >= 1 )` (This is such a case where parentheses must be used.) — Matheus Garcia, Aug 07 '22 at 22:36

Error converting a bash function to a csh alias

3 Answers3