Can I embed the following bash shell code:
for name in $(git diff --name-only $1); do git difftool $1 $name & done
directly into the creation of a git alias:
git config --global alias.diffall ***my-bash-code-here***
This leads on from my previous question/answer on SO, where I put the code into a .sh file and then aliased to the file:
git config --global alias.diffall '!sh diffall.sh'
But in the never-ending quest for simplicity, there's gotta be a way to skip the file and insert code directly into the alias? I can't figure out the format...
git config --global alias.diffall '!sh diffall.sh'
This is redundant in one way. If you are going to add 'diffall.sh' into your $PATH anyway, why not save it as 'git-diffall', and save yourself from declaring an alias. Yes, "git diffall" will run it.
To run commands inside of a git alias, and in particular to pass arguments to those commands, you will likely have to create a temporary function which you then immediately invoke:
$ vim ~/.gitconfig
...
[alias]
# compare:
foo = "! echo begin arg=$1/$2/end"
foo2 = "!f() { echo "begin arg=$1/$2/end"; }; f"
In this example, the function is probably what you need (and is also more flexible as to what you can do in a single "statement"); and you can probably tell that for both options, the remaining args to the git command are simply passed as args to the alias, regardless if it's "echo" or "f"; invoking the function simply consumes the args, ignoring what's not explicitly used:
$ git foo a b c
begin arg=a/b/end a b c
$ git foo2 a b c
begin arg=a/b/end
Another example (lists all aliases, based on matching pattern) (note: you can keep reusing the same function name "f()" throughout the .gitconfig):
[alias]
alias = "!f() { git config --get-regexp "^alias.${1}$" ; }; f"
The first returns the alias for just "foo$", the second for "foo.*":
$ git alias foo
alias.foo ! echo begin arg=$1/$2/end
$ git alias 'foo.*'
alias.foo ! echo begin arg=$1/$2/end
alias.foo2 !f() { echo begin arg=$1/$2/end; }; f
(nb: actual results may vary based on shell; I'm using this with bash on Linux, Unix & Cygwin (Windows).)