Shell script: shorten or aliasing an address after a command - shell

Question

I want to abbreviate or set an alias to a destination address every time I use while copying files. For example,
scp <myfile> my_destination
where my_destination could be hbaromega#192.168.1.100:Documents. So I want to modify my .bash_profile by inserting something like
alias my_destination = 'hbaromega#192.168.1.100:Documents' .
But that doesn't work since my_destination is not a command.
Is there a way out?
Note: I don't want to abbreviate the whole command, but only the address, so that I can use it with other possible commands.

Answer 1

You can't do what you want for the reason you state (an alias defines an entire command). But you could use a shell function to come close:
my_scp() {
scp "$#" hbaromega#192.168.1.100:Documents/.
}
which you could then call as
my_scp *.c
(Using $# in doublequotes is shell black magic that avoids trouble if any of the file names matched by the *.c glob contain spaces)
Of course, if you don't want to define a function, you could always use a shell variable to at least save the retyping:
dest='hbaromega#192.168.1.100:Documents/.'
scp *.c $dest

Answer 2

You have a couple options. You can set hostname aliases in your ~/.ssh/config like this:
Host my_destination
Hostname 192.168.1.100
User hbaromega
You could use it like this:
$ scp myfile my_destination:Documents/
Note that you'd still have to specify the default directory.
Another option would be to just put an environment variable in your ~/.bashrc:
export my_destination='hbaromega#192.168.1.100:Documents/'
Then you could use it like this:
$ scp myfile $my_destination
BertD's approach of defining a function would also work.

Answer 3

I think this works without using export as well since anyway I am assigning a variable for the path or destination. So I can just put the following in my .basrc or .bash_profile :
my_destination='hbaromega#192.168.1.100:Documents/'
Then
scp <myfile> $my_destination
Similarly I can execute any action (e.g. moving a file)for any local destination or directory:
local_dest='/Users/hbaromega/Documents/'
and then
mv <myfile> $local_dest
In summary, a destination address can be put as a variable, but not as a shell command or function.

Answer 4

The reason it does not work is there are spaces surrounding the = sign. As pointed out, an alias must be called as the first part of the command string. You are more likely to get the results you need by exporting my_destination and then calling it with a $. In ~/.bashrc:
export my_destination='hbaromega#192.168.1.100:Documents'
Then:
scp <myfile> $my_destination
Note: you will likely need to provide a full path to Documents in the export.