NAME

newalias - install new elm aliases for user and/or system

SYNOPSIS

newalias [-g]

DESCRIPTION

Newalias creates new hash and data files from a text file. If the program is invoked with the -g (global) flag, the program updates the system alias files. Otherwise, the program looks for a file called $HOME/.elm/aliases.text and, upon finding it, creates files $HOME/.elm/aliases.dir, $HOME/.elm/aliases.pag and $HOME/.elm/aliases for the elm program.

The format that the program expects is;

	alias, alias, .. = comment = address
or
	alias, alias, .. = comment = alias, alias, ...
   
The first form is for an individual user such as;
	dave, taylor = Dave Taylor = veeger!hpcnou!dat
or optionally as;
	dave, taylor = Taylor; Dave = veeger!hpcnou!dat
to allow the aliases to be properly sorted by last name.
The second is for defining a group alias such as;
	gurus = Unix Gurus = alan, john, dave, mike, richard,
		             larry, t_richardson

Note that lines can be continued at will, blank lines are accepted without error, and that any line starting with '#' is considered a comment and is not processed.

If the `comment', or `address' fields need to contain `=' characters, those characters must either be escaped using a backslash character or the address must be inside doublequotes (`"').

Aliases are case insensitive so dave and Dave are both the same alias.

Finally, aliases can contain other aliases, and/or groups;

	unix = Unix people = gurus, taylor, jonboy

FILES

$HOME/.elm/aliases.text alias source for user
$HOME/.elm/aliases.dir alias dbz directory for user
$HOME/.elm/aliases.pag alias dbz hash file for user
$HOME/.elm/aliases alias data file for user
/usr/local/lib/aliases.text alias source for system
/usr/local/lib/aliases.dir alias dbz directory for system
/usr/local/lib/aliases.pag alias data hash table for system
/usr/local/lib/aliases alias data file for system

AUTHOR

Elm Development Group

DIAGNOSTICS

Newalias has a couple of descriptive error messages which don't need to be detailed here. It is, however, worth noting that the checkalias program can be used to ensure that the aliases are in the proper order and are available for the elm system.

BUG REPORTS TO

Bill Pemberton flash@virginia.edu