Update an existing abbreviation

[ealap]

I currently maintain a dotfile where I define aliases and functions used on different machines. However, some of these machines can't support installation of zsh-abbr that's why I stick with defining them as alias myalias=..., and then just run abbr import-aliases on machines that has it.

My problem is if I update an alias definition, it is not possible to update the corresponding abbreviation using add or import-aliases, instead the following error is printed:

Did not add the global user abbreviation `myalias` because it already exists

I need to use erase first, then proceed with add or import-aliases.

Suggestions:

• Make the --force option be able to update an existing abbreviation
• Or introduce a new option --update or --overwrite

[olets]

Letting add --force and import-aliases --force overwrite an existing abbreviation (using the output as abbr erase) sounds like a good solution. I won't have much zsh-abbr time for a while; PRs are welcome.

For you specific issue of duplicating your zsh environment across machines, zsh-bin or xxh might be helpful (I'm not an expert on either).

[olets]

https://github.com/olets/zsh-abbr/releases/tag/v5.1.0 is out, with support for add --force, rename --force, and import-aliases --force