Alias substitution for a string to use it in a terminal command

Question

Is there a way to substitute aliases such that it is appended or prepended to an existing command in the shell?

For example, defining the alias:

alias execloc='/home/user/'

Prepending this to a command in the bash terminal:

cd exeloc/temp/somefolder

Can something like this be done, or is there a way to do it?

Solution

You can't do it like this because /home/user/ is not a command. It't more like a static string.

From man bash (somewhere at line 1984):

Aliases allow a string to be substituted for a word when it is used as the first word of a simple command.

In your case, execloc will never be the first word of a simple command.

But, instead to define execloc as an alias, you can define it as an environment variable:

export execloc='/home/user/'

And then you can use it everywhere you want as follow:

cd $exeloc/temp/somefolder

Comments

[Radu Rădeanu]

Have you seen this answer?

[FreudianSlip]

Yes, I have - have you tried to run what I suggested? The substitution is done in the shell and will perform the example the OP posted.

[FreudianSlip]

Ah, now I see - your post contains what I posted as well - so I duplicated your answer. SO although I did see your response, I didn't read it all the way through. Take off the downvote and I'll remove the response.