How can I automatically quote or group commandline arguments for alias in bash?

I have a script that takes a command and executes it on a remote host. It works fine, for example:

$ rexec "ant build_all"

will execute the "ant build_all" command on the remote system (passing it through SSH, etc).

Because I'm lazy, I want to set up an alias for this command (and ultimately, several others), such that, for example, I can just invoke

$ rant build_all

and bash will it will automatically invoke

$ rexec "ant build_all"

I tried doing this with alias, but if I define

alias rant=rexec ant

then any arguments passed to "rant" will just be appended to the end, like so:

$ rant build_all -Dtarget=Win32
(interpreted as:)
$ rexec "ant" build_all -Dtarget=Win32

This fails, because rexec really takes just one argument, and ignores the others.

I could probably do this with a bash wrapper script, but I was wondering if bash had any built-ins for doing this for me, perhaps a named-argument version of alias, or a perl-like quote string command (e.g. qw/ / ), or some such.

From stackoverflow

• You can do it as a function, not an alias:

  function rant { rexec "ant $1"; }
  

  You can call it at the command line like an alias

• For all arguments, this will work.

  function rant () {
      rexec "ant $*"
  }
  

  You may need to adjust the quoting, depending on what arguments you're passing.

  glamdringlfo : I used this, but with an important generalization. Thanks!

  glamdringlfo : (since I cannot accept my own answer, look below for it)

• I ended up using Ken G's answer, but one better: defining rex as a function, like so:

  function rex {
      run_remote.sh -c "$*"
  }
  

  allowed me to then use rexec in aliases, like this:

  alias rant="rex ant"
  

  and still have it wrap the arguments up the way I need them.

  I forgot I could use functions like that in bash. This does exactly what I needed, without having to create a wrapper script.

  Great tip, thanks!

  edit: changed "rexec" to "rex", because I found that my system already had a program called "rexec"