Opening OS X apps from the command line

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# By: Ernesto Jiménez <erjica@gmail.com>
#
# This script will generate aliases for all your applications 
# in your /Applications folder in OS X allowing you to easily
# open applications from your command line.
# Examples:
#  finder ~
#  quicktime-player /path/to/video.mov
#
# I've added these lines to my $HOME/.bashrc:
#   if [ -f $HOME/.bashrc_aliases ]; then
#       source $HOME/.bashrc_aliases
#   fi
 

echo "alias finder=\"open -a finder\"" > $HOME/.bashrc_aliases

for i in $(

  ls /Applications | awk -F / '{

    if ($NF ~ /\.app$/) {
      app_name = tolower($NF);
      sub(/\.app/, "", app_name);
      gsub(/[^a-z0-9]+/, "-", app_name);
      print app_name
    }

  }'); do


    COMMAND="open -a \\\"$(echo $i | sed -e 's/-/ /g')\\\""

    echo "alias $i=\"$COMMAND\"" >> $HOME/.bashrc_aliases
done
 
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