Sometimes you may want to bypass an alias temporarily, without disabling it. To work with a concrete example, consider this alias:

alias ls='ls --color=auto'

And let's say you want to use the ls command without disabling the alias. You have several options:

• Use the command builtin: command ls
• Use the full path of the command: /bin/ls
• Add a \ anywhere in the command name, for example: \ls, or l\s
• Quote the command: "ls" or 'ls'

alias word='command'

Invoking word will run command. Any arguments supplied to the alias are simply appended to the target of the alias:

alias myAlias='some command --with --options'
myAlias foo bar baz

The shell will then execute:

some command --with --options foo bar baz

To include multiple commands in the same alias, you can string them together with &&. For example:

alias print_things='echo "foo" && echo "bar" && echo "baz"'

To remove an existing alias, use:

unalias {alias_name}

Example:

# create an alias    
$ alias now='date'

# preview the alias
$ now
Thu Jul 21 17:11:25 CEST 2016

# remove the alias
$ unalias now

# test if removed
$ now
-bash: now: command not found

alias -p

will list all the current aliases.

Assuming that bar is an alias for someCommand -flag1.

Type bar on the command line and then press Ctrl+alt+e

you'll get someCommand -flag1 where bar was standing.

Aliases are named shortcuts of commands, one can define and use in interactive bash instances. They are held in an associative array named BASH_ALIASES. To use this var in a script, it must be run within an interactive shell

#!/bin/bash -li
# note the -li above! -l makes this behave like a login shell
# -i makes it behave like an interactive shell
#
# shopt -s expand_aliases will not work in most cases

echo There are ${#BASH_ALIASES[*]} aliases defined.

for ali in "${!BASH_ALIASES[@]}"; do
   printf "alias: %-10s triggers: %s\n" "$ali" "${BASH_ALIASES[$ali]}" 
done

Remarks

The alias will only be available in the shell where the alias command was issued.

To persist the alias consider putting it into your .bashrc