Very good, spot on! This is the reason why an alias won't work for that.

This is possible, but not with an alias. Notice that one of your initial solutions:

Code:

alias llf='ls -l "/"$1'

did not work because "${1}" or "$1" are denominating positional parameters. Positional parameters occur only in processes. To create a new process you would need a script therefore. So, what you can do is to create a file called "llf" with this content:

Code:

ls -l /"${1}"

set its execute rights (i.e. chmod 754 llf) and now you could use it like:

Code:

/path/to/llf usr

to execute ls -l /usr. Put this script (if you are satisfied) into your PATH (or extend your PATH variable to where the script resides) and you could use that like the alias you initially planned to use.

I hope this helps.

bakunin