I deleted my aliases file, but my aliases are still in my bash session - how can I recover them?

Question

I had a ton of aliases defined and I use them all the time. I have a terminal session open now in which all the aliases are valid and working. However, the .bash_aliases file in which they were defined has been deleted. How can I expand or recover my aliases from my terminal session?

Answer 1

Simply use the command alias which prints out all definitions in a format bash can read in again:

$ alias
alias second='again'
alias test='hello'

So to recover, simply use

$ alias > .bash_aliases