1. Open the .bash_profile file with your favorite editor (for instance C-x C-f in emacs and search for the file: ~/.bash_profile)

  2. Write your aliases in the .bash_profile like:

  • alias vw1=’vw click_train.vw -c -k –passes 10 –loss_function=logistic –link=logistic -f click_model.vw’
  • alias vw2=’vw click_test.vw -t -i click_model.vw -p click_predictions.txt’
  • alias score=’python score_vw.py click_test.vw click_predictions.txt ‘
  • alias nb=’ipython notebook’
  • alias py3=’source activate python3’

The first three aliases are for vowpal wabbit routines I’ve been using a lot.

The fourth one is really useful to launch Ipython Notebook.

The last one is to switch to python 3. Before that I had to create a ‘conda’ environment for python 3 with

conda create -n python3 python=3.4

  1. Force the .bash_profile to execute. This loads the values immediately without having to reboot. In your Terminal window, run the following command.

$ source ~/.bash_profile

  1. Then, enjoy your shortcuts in Terminal! Launch a notebook in python 3 with just 4 letters and 1 number!

$ macbook-pro-de-lecue:~ lecueguillaume$ py3

discarding /Users/lecueguillaume/anaconda/bin from PATH

prepending /Users/lecueguillaume/anaconda/envs/python3/bin to PATH

$ (python3)macbook-pro-de-lecue:~ lecueguillaume$ nb