!(last command) trick?

belorion · 06-29-2005, 04:56 PM

I know that

$>!#

Executes the command found at # in your history and

$>!ba

Would execute the last command that starts with "ba", and that

$>ping !$

Would execute the ping with the argument from the last command, but is there a way to expand what the command is? IE, I want to be able to type

$>!pi (and some key combo)

That will expand the command to

$>ping -n 10 foo.com

So I can see the command before I execute it. Is this possible?

mhallbiai · 06-29-2005, 06:12 PM

i think you are looking for

Code:

]$
]$ !:p
 man bash
]$ !pin:p
 ping -n 10 foo.com
]$

hope this helps

[EDIT: corrected :p from being smiley]

pbhj · 06-29-2005, 07:09 PM

where did you learn this?

How do you find the man page for ! or :

!?

mhallbiai · 06-30-2005, 08:07 PM

pbhj,

! is an event designator used in history expansion for bash.
there is a wealth of documentation for bash.
that just scratched the surface...

Code:

man bash

you can search the man pages for 'event designators' and it will bring you directly to ! paging up from there will explain HISTORY EXPANSION

: is a under SHELL BUILTIN COMMANDS discussed after !

hope this helps

many happy hours of reading

[EDIT: cleaned up spacing]

LinuxLala · 07-02-2005, 02:00 PM

You could also try Ctrl+r, which gives you a reverse search. For example, you do ping -n 10 foo.com

So, the next time you need to ping foo.com, you can type ctrl+r and then write pi and it would auto complete.

thrombomodulin · 07-03-2005, 01:01 PM

set -o vi
(or bindkey -v in tcsh)

will bind the keys on the command line to be like the vi editor, you can search backwards for a command and edit it, then execute it.

Regards,.
T