Using awk in BASH alias or function

Question

I\'ve a command that works just fine at the command line, but not when I try to put it in an alias or function.

$ awk \'{print $1}\' /tmp/textfile
0
<         


        

Answer 1

Use a function instead of alias

myfunc(){ awk '{print $1}' file; }

Answer 2

You need to escape the $ like so:

 alias a="awk '{print \$1}' /tmp/textfile"

Otherwise your alias is:

 awk '{print }' /tmp/textfile

Which prints the whole file...