Using Built-in and Group Aliases

Many CLI commands have an alias that lets you abbreviate the command’s name. (An alias is one or more characters that Tcl interprets as a command or command argument.)

The alias command, which is described in the TotalView Reference Guide, lets you create your own aliases.

For example, the following command tells the CLI to halt the current group:

dfocus g dhalt

Using an abbreviation is easier. The following command does the same thing:

f g h

You often type less-used commands in full, but some commands are almost always abbreviated. These commands include dbreak (b), ddown (d), dfocus (f), dgo (g), dlist (l), dnext (n), dprint (p), dstep (s), and dup (u).

The CLI also includes uppercase group versions of aliases for a number of commands, including all stepping commands. For example, the alias for dstep is s; in contrast, S is the alias for dfocus g dstep. (The first command tells the CLI to step the process. The second steps the control group.)

Group aliases differ from the group-level command that you type interactively, as follows:

They do not work if the current focus is a list. The g focus specifier modifies the current focus, and can only be applied if the focus contains just one term.

They always act on the group, no matter what width is specified in the current focus. Therefore, dfocus t S does a step-group command.