A shortcut for some usually used commands with variables

Question

I use these commands on a daily basis:

mkdir ______ && rar a -m0 -v200M ______/______.rar "XXXXXXXX" && rm -rf "XXXXXXXX" &&
par2 c -r10 -l ______/______.par2 ______/* && ~/newsmangler/mangler.py -c
~/.newsmangler.conf ______ && rm -rf ______

Where "XXXXXXXX" and "______" are two variables.
Is there a way to use a shortcut to make this easier since the only things that change are "XXXXXXXX" and "______"? I'm looking for something similar to:

mycommands _____ XXXXX

Couple things you may want to know:
- I use GNOME terminal.
- I don't have a root access.

Answer 1

Just write a function that accepts two arguments:

function just_do_it (){
  ( [ -z "$1" ] || [ -z "$2" ] ) && echo "No arguments given" && return 1
  echo "do stuff with $1 and $2"
  # notice to use double quotes, when processing the varibales
  ls -l "$1"
}

The first line check if the two arguments are given. The argument can be accessed by $1 (first one) and $2 (second).

Edit: the function in your case would then for example look like this (a bit more readable formatted):

function just_do_it (){
  ( [ -z "$1" ] || [ -z "$2" ] ) && echo "No arguments given" && return 1
  mkdir "$1" && \
  rar a -m0 -v200M "$1/$1.rar" "$2" && \
  rm -rf "$2" && \
  par2 c -r10 -l "$1/$1.par2" "$1/*" && \
  ~/newsmangler/mangler.py -c ~/.newsmangler.conf "$1" && \
  rm -rf "$1"
}