Jtdylktuy

When I do

$ watch kubectl get pods

it works fine but on doing:

$ alias p0="kubectl get pods"

$ watch p0

gives an error:
Every 2.0s: p0

sh: p0: command not found

It looks like watch is starting a subshell and the aliases in my current shell aren't visible to the subshell. I do have

$ shopt -s expand_aliases

at the very top of my .bashrc but it isn't helping.

Trying this with bash version 3.2.57 on Mac OS Mojave.

Update:
Tried a few more things:

$  watch -n 0.1 "source ~/.bashrc; shopt; alias p0; p0"

still doesn't work.

cdable_vars     off

cdspell         off

checkhash       off

checkwinsize    off

cmdhist         on

compat31        off

dotglob         off

execfail        off

expand_aliases  on

extdebug        off

extglob         off

extquote        on

failglob        off

force_fignore   on

gnu_errfmt      off

histappend      on

histreedit      off

histverify      off

hostcomplete    on

huponexit       off

interactive_comments    on

lithist         off

login_shell     off

mailwarn        off

no_empty_cmd_completion off

nocaseglob      off

nocasematch     off

nullglob        off

progcomp        on

promptvars      on

restricted_shell        off

shift_verbose   off

sourcepath      on

xpg_echo        on

p0='kubectl get pods'   <--- HERE'S THE ALIAS

sh: p0: command not found  <--- STILL DOESN'T EXECUTE IT.

Aliases are not inherited by subshells. Functions may be exported but while this approach makes Bash inherit exported function(s) from Bash, watch will interfere, mainly because it spawns sh, not bash.

You have at least three options:

1. Make p0 a script somewhere in $PATH, so watch can run it like any other executable. If done right, this will be very robust.



2. 
   

   Define a special alias for watch:

   
   
   

   alias watch='watch '
   
   

   
   
   

   Then this happens:

   
   
   

   
   

   If the last character of the alias value is a blank, then the next command word following the alias is also checked for alias expansion.

   
   

   
   
   

   ^source

   
   
   

   So watch p0 will work (but watch -n 4 p0 won't).

   
   


3. 
   

   Define an alias (or function, or script, whatever) for the whole command:

   
   
   

   alias wp0='watch kubectl get pods'
   
   

   
   
   

   and type just wp0.

   
   

function watcha() {

    a=$(alias $1) # extract the cmd from the alias



    #remove = sign and first/last ' before executing thru watch

    watch $(echo $a | awk -F= '{print $2}'|sed 's/.$//'|sed 's/^.//') 

}

Now when I do

$ watcha p0

it does work as expected.