ALgorIthmic ASsembly language. Machine oriented language, a variant of BLISS. Implemented in BCPL for the PDP9.
["ALIAS", H.E. Barreveld, Int Rep, Math Dept, Delft U Tech, Netherlands (1973)].
A name, usually short and easy to remember and type, that is translated into another name or string, usually long and difficult to remember or type. Most command interpreters (e.g. Unix's csh) allow the user to define aliases for commands, e.g. "alias l ls -al". These are loaded into memory when the interpreter starts and are expanded without needing to refer to any file.
Hostnames may also have aliases which are other names for the same Internet address. E.g. in the Unix hosts database (/etc/hosts or NIS map) the first field on a line is the Internet address, the next is the official hostname (the "canonical name" or "CNAME") and any others are aliases. Hostname aliases often indicate that the host with that alias provides a particular network service such as archie, finger, FTP, or World-Wide Web. The assignment of services to hosts can then be changed simply by moving an alias (e.g. www.doc.ic.ac.uk) from one Internet address to another, without the clients needing to be aware of the change.
(21 Feb 1995)