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  • I got used to doing this over many many years with the tcsh shell. I switched to Fish recently and I continue to be annoyed by its refusal to implement this feature. Yes, I tried using all the newfangled history-search thingamajigs. They all kind of work, and they all have their issues. But the !, together with in-place expansion, is something I still dearly miss.
    by jwr
  • > alt-. is great for what it is designed to do, iterating over the previous "last arguments" of your shell history. It's great at doing that, but it is also limited to doing just that one thing.

    No, it isn't limited to just that. Alt-0 alt-. will give you the zeroth "argument" (the program), alt-1 alt-. will get you the next (the program's first argument), etc. Negative arguments count back from the end: alt-- 1 alt-. will get you the argument before the last one (note that alt is held for the "-" but not the digit).

    When you do use event designators, ctrl-alt-e (or alt-^) is critical. It expands all the ! codes inline to what they refer to, so you can see what you're doing before you hit enter, and as you're constructing the command too.

    by mkl
  • Everyone need be aware, bash uses emac extensions by default. As I refuse to use emacs, I therefore refuse to use these extensions in bash!

    In as most sensible people use vi, don't taint yourself by touching this foul and evil emacs magic. Being known as an emacs user could cost you a job, shorten your career, or even cause rifts with family and friends.

    Instead my friends, if you must use such bash shenanigans, switch it to vi extensions. You'll feel better about yourself, stand taller, and be a better human being as a result.

    Be safe.

    by b112
  • Rather than a sense of "cool" or "useful" somehow I end up just feeling despair at how organically convoluted it is to determine what something on a command-line really does. To be fair, I've always been biased towards "only the simplest scripts should be in shell languages."

    This also adds an intriguing new dimensions to reviewing/verifying shell commands as benign and correct... How long until LLMs start (ab)using the trick in little requests they want me to approve?

    by Terr_
  • This is for teletypewriters. For those of us with interactive electronic video displays, we can use up-arrow to recall the last command or Ctrl-R to search history, then edit the recalled command.
    by inigyou
  • IMO, !$ is most useful of them all (it is the one that gets replaced with the last argument of the last command).

    !! you can do just as easily with up-arrow enter, which is just as quick. !ssh you can do with ctrl+r, which actually shows you what it's going to run and whether the last ssh is to where you think it is. sudo !! is up arrow, ctrl+a, 'sudo ', one more keystroke but it's natural if you know your readline. The rest are too complex and not worth learning. !$ is the sweet spot.

    by miki123211
  • Decades ago, I was taught to use `!` and Co, by a Linux user who was fond of the `sudo !!` trick. Then I switched from this implicit interpolation to explicit shortcuts, and I'm glad I did.

    As suggested in the FAQ at the bottom, instead of !… you can use ctrl-r. Or better, optionally type the first letters then alt-p or "up". It's more powerful and more extensible. Other shortcuts, like alt-., allow navigating into the past parameters.

    With up, alt-p, alt-. and such, the command line displays the real command. The !… magic is more error-prone and ambiguous; with zsh, I'd suggest hitting TAB to expand the magic into a static text.

    I would add other entries to the FAQ: When I enter `sudo !!` will it be stored unchanged in the shell history, or stored after interpolation of `!!`? When I start a command line with a space, so that zsh does not put it in the shell history, will !… also ignore that line? Is `!$` recursive?

    by idoubtit
  • Every time someone brings this up, I think "oh right, I could do that" and then immediately forget. Especially if you can type quickly, it's easier to just "drive straight ahead" with the command you want, than add another "mental branch" to interrupt the flow. For the same reason I'll often Ctrl+C and start again instead of trying to backspace and correct.
    by userbinator

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