Hi
I frequently enter commands on the Bash command line which extend over a couple of lines eg.
Manytimes, I build up such a script, where I initially just write an `echo' command instead of `cp' to prevent misfortune. However, each time I use key-up to get the previous entry from the command line, the whole command is written on one line and it becomes difficult to edit. Can Bash be configured such that multi line commands from the history are "rebuilt" that way?

Thanks for hints.

in vi mode you can simply press key up to look for the command and ESC and v to edit that command
in emacs mode there can be something similar, but I'm not really familiar with that mode

Not sure if that could be done in bash, and sometimes the commands are built the way they should, but sometimes just creating and using a temporary script for it, is not really a bad thing and even safer. That's how I do things when I find that I'm already creating a large multi-line command and that I'm no longer really able to handle it.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in <Programming> and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Hey, thanks for pointing this out. I checked out the description here
http://www.catonmat.net/blog/bash-vi...e-cheat-sheet/

where vi mode of bash is illustrated and this guy gives an example where he enters a command on the Bash command line, presses ESC to enter command mode (leaving insert mode) and 'v' (no quotes) to open a temporary vi session with the command currently being edited. Here it's fairly easy to edit the multi-line command, but what I dont get is how then to correctly execute the modified command?
A guy in the comments says you need :wq (no quotes), and that seems to execute the command, however my prompt gets stuck on a line with a '>' in front of it and i need to use Ctrl-C to finish it. I guess i'm missing how to correctly execute the temporary command from the vi session. How do I do that?

thank again

in such cases the command is copied into a temp file and that temp file will be edited by vi. You need to save that file before exiting vi (that is :wq) and finally the content of that temp file will be executed as a command (and also the temp file will be removed). If you got prompt '>' it means the command was not complete, could not be executed (for example a done, esac, fi or similar is missing from the end).

The lithist shell option makes the shell save multi-line commands as-is.

Put it in your .bashrc to make it "permanent".

Note that using it comes with its own set of headaches as well.