How do I automate or make an alias of this task?

[Rytron]

Hi.
Could I make an alias of this task?

I want an alias to move ~/.sportstracker to ~/Documents/Software/SportsTracker_4.1.1 and then zip it and name the zip file like this SportsTrackerBackup_yyyy-mm-dd (example: SportsTrackerBackup_2010-03-08)

Note: I don't mind how the archive is compressed, 7z, rar, zip, tar, etc. Although the higher the compression the better.

Else, is there a way to automate this daily or once a week?

[falconindy]

i'd write it as a bash function. It works the same and goes in the same place, but follows slightly different rules:

stracker() {
  gzip ~/.sportstracker
  mv -v ~/.sportsracker.gz ~/Documents/Software/SportsTracker_4.11/SportsTrackerBackup_$(date +%F)
}

If you wanted this automated, you could take the two real commands out of this and throw them into a script file for use as a cron job. There would be some further changes necessary though.

[Rytron]

Thank you falconindy. It does not work though.

Just a quick correction on your code:

stracker() {
  gzip ~/.sportstracker
  mv -v ~/.sportstracker.gz ~/Documents/Software/SportsTracker_4.11/SportsTrackerBackup_$(date +%F)
}

I made this file like so from your code [attached].

[Rytron]

Does anyone know how to solve this?

Is it possible to combine two commands in one alias? For example, something to do this:

1. gzip ~/.sportstracker
2. mv -v ~/.sportsracker.gz ~/Documents/Software/SportsTracker_4.11/SportsTrackerBackup

I am not certain the above syntax is 100% correct though.

[sisco311]

you have to add the function to the ~/.bashrc file & (re)source the file:

. ~/.bashrc

or start a new bash session.

if you plan to write more function, you may want to keep them in a separate file (i.e. ~/.bash_functions) & add something like:

[ -f ~/.bash_functions ] && . ~/.bash_functions

to the ~/.bashrc file.

See:

man bash | less +/"\. *filename *\[arguments\]"

[Rytron]

I'm lost.

I just want an easy way to archive ~/.sportstracker & move it to the SportsTrackerBackup at ~/Documents/Software/SportsTracker_4.11/SportsTrackerBackup