what does "alias a a;a" do?

[SpaceKraken]

my friend said it shows enemy's ranks in matchmaking but i'm scared to try it...

[frisky]

It doesn't do anything by itself, aliases have to be defined before they have a purpose.

[Vaulty]

It won't show enemy ranks in MM
It shouldn't do anything really
The worst thing it can happen is that it will make your A key "broken" and you won't be able to go left

[PRESS `m' :(]

Lmao you guys it crashes the game

It makes command "a" a hotlink to itself. So it runs itself which runs itself which runs itself and the game instantly uses all memory

[Fishe]

Necroing this thread :3. It crashes any and ALL source engine games

[Katana]

We do a little trolling

[Glitch.]

is called Fork Bomb, be careful when putting regex's on command consoles

[unconnected]

bro they say 'if anyone writes alias a a a;a in console, Ill give him something' and ı make it (I have to restart computer).

[♛⁧Schultheiß]

First part:
alias a a - defines alias "a" as "a,"
so when the console finds "a", it will execute "a"
essentially creating an infinite loop.
Second part:
a - executes the infinite loop.

There's no reason for it to be "a," there are also much cooler ways of crashing the game, through the use of pipes. I really like the buffer escapes, that allow you to execute the arguments as commands.

[chicken bake]

crashes game