10.1 Creating Custom Commands

• In most shells, aliases ( 10.2 , 10.3 , 10.4 ) are an easy way to shorten a long command line or do a short series of commands.

• All except the oldest Bourne-type shells have shell functions ( 10.9 ) . These are a cross between aliases and shell scripts. They're good both for shortening command lines and for running a short or long series of commands.

• You can simulate shell functions ( 10.10 ) on older Bourne shells. These "fake functions" don't have much more power than aliases - but they're better than nothing!