Turn shell aliases into standalone scripts
'UniversalAlias'. Like the common alias builtin for most shells, but it generates a standalone, POSIX-compliant shell script. (The generated code has been tested with the dash shell.)
By default, the scripts themselves are stored in an aliases directory in /usr/local/bin, and each script therein is symbolically linked to the parent directory without an extension, so it may be called normally as a command assuming it's in the executable path. This behavior may be overriden with the --link-dir and --scripts-dir options. Defaults may be changed by rebuilding UAlias. No databases, no configuration.
Scripts may be generated with a similar command to the usual alias builtin: Either ualias <name> <contents> or ualias <name>=<contents>. They may be deleted with ualias -d <name>. Additionally, --post-instruction flag may be included to place code after the parameters of a script, instead of before.
When invoked alone, ualias will print the scripts in --scripts-dir in a familiar format. UAlias also supports different output formats. For instance, ualias -P shell will instead print a shell script containing UAlias commands necessary to overwrite reproduce the currently stored aliases. It may be edited then invoked to change many aliases at once.
The read performance of UAlias may be improved by placing it in a cron job that runs periodically and pipes its output into /dev/null. (Example: @hourly ualias > /dev/null). This will help to keep the script files in the operating system's read cache
UAlias requires BWAP
Run nimble install https://github.com/buzzingwires/bwap to install.
Then ualias can be built with nimble build. Copy the resulting binary wherever you'd like.