command line alias versus .bash_profile alias

Question

when I create this alias from the command line everything works fine alias ejecta='for I in 1 2 3; do /usr/sbin/diskutil unmountDisk disk$I;done'

When the same alias is created in .bash_profile. the OS drops "$I"

THis is such a newbie question but I'm embarassed to say I cant find the solution. Do I have to create a sript and have the alias reference it ?

Answer 1

What you are trying should work. The $I is probably being evaluated when your alias is being defined. Which probably means you are missing some quotes somewhere.

However, without including the relevant portion of your .bash_profile its hard to say.

Answer 2

In your question, you surround the alias with single quotes, which is the correct way to do it in order to delay evaluation of the variable. My guess is that you're using double quotes in your .bash_profile which allows the variable to be evaluated immediately. Since it's likely that the variable is unset at that point, it evaluates to a null string.