[ILUG] Shell tip: bang commands...

[kevin lyda]

Most modern shells support csh's bang commands - bash, tcsh and zsh
all do.  While some bang commands don't work in all those shells, all
of the following do.  The plus side to using them is that no matter what
shell you're using, these shortcuts will work.

For the purposes of these tips, every tip will assume these are the last
three commands you ran:

    % which firefox
    % make
    % ./foo -f foo.conf
    % vi foo.c bar.c

Getting stuff from the last command:

    Full line:     % !!            becomes:   % vi foo.c bar.c
    Last arg :     % svn ci !$     becomes:   % svn ci bar.c
    All args :     % svn ci !*     becomes:   % svn ci foo.c bar.c
    First arg:     % svn ci !!:1   becomes:   % svn ci foo.c

Accessing commandlines by pattern:

    Full line:     % !./f          becomes:   % ./foo -f foo.conf
    Full line:     % vi `!whi`     becomes:   % vi `which firefox`
    Last arg :     % vi !./f:$     becomes:   % vi foo.conf
    All args :     % ./bar !./f:*  becomes:   % ./bar -f foo.conf
    First arg:     % svn ci !vi:1  becomes:   % svn ci foo.c

Various shells have options that can affect this.  Be careful with
shells that let you share history among instances.  Some shells also
allow bang commands to be expanded with tabs or expanded and reloaded
on the command line for further editing when you press return.

Kevin

-- 
Kevin Lyda                US Citizen Abroad?  Had Enough?  Register
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