I am looking for a very specific behavior in my [Zsh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_shell) terminals. I have multiple terminal windows open at the same time. On each terminal window, if I hit the up arrow, I'd like for it to go up through the **local** history of that specific terminal window. On each terminal window, if I type Ctrl-R and then start typing to search through history, I would like it to search through the **global** history that comes from all the terminal windows combined. Is it possible? How can I do it?

The GNU History Expansion reference lacks examples, so I can't tell if this is possible. Here's what I want to do. I ran cat long/path/to/file1.txt | less, then I ran vim file2.txt. Using history expansion, I'd like to run cat even/longer/path/to/file3.txt | less but I don't want to: - Type long/path/to/file1.txt, since it's inconvenient to type. - Refer to the previous command with a number; I want to refer to it with a string. i.e., Use !cat..., but not !-2... Can this be done? --- Here's what I've tried (doesn't work): !cat:^!cat:1^even/longer/path/to/file3.txt^ Here's my thought process: 1. !cat - Substitute the last *command* that began with the string cat. 1. :^x^y^ - Replace x with y in this command 1. !cat:1 - Expand to the first argument of the last cat command, i.e., long/path/to/file1.txt 1. even/longer/path/to/file3.txt – The replacement for that expanded text One obvious reason this doesn't work is I'm nesting expansions in expansions: !cat:1 is interpreted as a literal string. I get this output: long/path/to/file1.txtlong/path/to/file1.txteven/longer/path/to/file3.txt^: No such file or directory

Say I have executed a command foo a b c d e f I can then use $! to access the last argument of that command, i.e. if I type echo !$ it turns into echo f. Similarily I can use echo !:4 to access the 4th element, d, but it means that I have to count from left. Is there a notation to access the nth element from right?

*NOTE: I plan on answering my own question.* This is the last command I ran on the command line: git co head -- a/path/to/a/file.ts I want to run this a few more times but with different file paths for the last argument/parameter. This page explains history expansion , and I think the answer I'm looking for is in this subsection , but it lacks examples. Using history expansion, how would I rerun the previous command with a different file path? For example, how would I run: git co head -- a/path/to/another/different-file.ts --- This is probably a duplicate but I haven't been able to find the answer I'm looking for. These posts look like they might have the answer but they didn't: - https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/60781/rerunning-the-same-command-with-a-different-parameter - https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/236506/replace-the-last-word-of-last-command-but-keep-the-first

Is it possible to disable history expansion inside double quotes? I do not want history expansion to be completely disabled, as I still use it, but I see no reason to expand the history inside a string ... An example of my desired behavior:

$ echo "Hello!"
Hello!
$ !!
Hello!

If I type in this:

echo "Hello, World!"

I don't know the name of it, but it prompts me for the next line. You know the PS2 thing. Or if you type echo \ and press Enter. Why? Well I know that ! is a **Special Variable** that you can use to reference your history. But as soon as I use this:

echo "Hello, World"!

I get my desired output. What is happening and why can't you use ! inside ""? --- Thanks for your help :)

Consider the following commands for overriding the history expansion characters (which I got from *Learning Shell Scripting with ZSH* book):

% set histchars='@^#'
% ls *.txt
file1.txt  file2.txt
% @@

Result:

zsh: command not found: @@

However, this works (note that set is omitted):

% histchars='@^#' 
% ls *.txt       
file1.txt  file2.txt
% @@

Result:

ls *.txt
file1.txt  file2.txt

I tried both with my .zshrc and with a vanilla shell (zsh --no-rcs), the result is the same. Question: is the set ... syntax wrong in the book, or am I missing something?

When I type at the bash prompt

!5

... I simply get

!5: command not found

... as the response. Any ideas about what I am doing wrong? Anything I should check?

I'm trying to set an alias for sudo !! in Bash. I tried alias sbb='sudo !!', but it interprets that as a literal !! and prints sudo: !!: command not found If I use double quotes, it substitutes the double bang in the string itself, so that doesn't work. Is there any way to make this work? Or an alternative alias? `

I have a workflow that first check git diff for specific file and then add it to stage.

git diff ..

^diff^add

I want to give these command a alias but this one doesn't work

alias da="^diff^add"

command not found: ^diff^add

The question is about special variables. Documentation says: > !!:$ > > designates the **last argument of the preceding command**. This may > be shortened to !$. ---- > ($_, an underscore.) At shell startup, set to the absolute pathname used to invoke the shell or shell script being executed as passed in the environment or argument list. Subsequently, expands to the **last argument to the previous command** after expansion. Also set to the full pathname used to invoke each command executed and placed in the environment exported to that command. There must be some difference I cannot catch, because: $ echo "hello" > /tmp/a.txt $ echo "!$" echo "/tmp/a.txt" /tmp/a.txt $ echo "hello" > /tmp/a.txt $ echo $_ hello What is the difference?

I took a closer look on this phenomenon after I stumbled over it in two other questions today. I've tried all of this with the default set -H (history expansion on). To test a script, I often do things like echoing a multi-line string and pipe it through a script, but in some cases it gives an error: $ echo "foo bar" | sed '/foo/!d' bash: !d': event not found > The ! seems to trigger history expansion, although it is enclosed with single quotes. The problem seems to be the occurrence of the double quote in the same line, because $echo $'foo\nbar' | sed '/foo/!d' works as well as $echo "foo bar" | > sed '/foo/!d' My suspicion: History expansion is applied linewise, so the ' after a single " is considered to be escaped, so the following ! is not escaped. Now my question: Is this a bug or expected behavior? Reproduced with bash versions 4.2.30 and 4.4.12.

Can I make the right-arrow key fill in an argument-at-a-time from the previous command line? $ mogrify -resize 50% file.jpg $ pressing right arrow now should fill in mogrify, pressing right arrow again should fill in all the way up to mogrify -resize, if I were to press it again mogrify -resize 50% etc. and in the case that the command line so far does not match the directly preceding command line, it should fill in from the most recent matching command $ mogrify -resize 50% file.jpg $ echo hi $ mo Pressing right arrow should fill in mogrify not echo. how can zsh be configured to support this?

I'm working with a command-line tool that provides a number of subcommands that all use the same binary, e.g. tool foo, tool bar, etc, and as I work, these commands are placed into my Bash shell history, for example:

7322  [2021-04-16 15:37:45 +0000] tool foo .
 7323  [2021-04-16 15:37:47 +0000] tool bar
 7324  [2021-04-16 15:37:50 +0000] tool baz
 7325  [2021-04-16 15:38:01 +0000] tool qux -a -b asdf -c=100 /var/lib/foo/...
 7326  [2021-04-16 15:38:15 +0000] htop
 7327  [2021-04-16 15:38:21 +0000] tool foo . -x

The exact tool is proprietary (its exact functionality is irrelevant) and doesn't have specific features to help with tracking and recalling its own commands. For example, I'd like to recall command 7325, tool qux -a -b asdf -c=100 /var/lib/foo/... (suppose that it's not recent enough to just hit the up arrow a bunch of times). The commands and parameters vary often enough that establishing a Bash alias doesn't seem practical or convenient (either I edit .bashrc or I lose the alias when the shell closes). I'm pretty confident that the *last* time I ran tool qux, it had the correct parameters that I would want to use, or a reasonably safe set that I would need to edit anyway. I know I could run history | grep qux to look for the history index and then run !7325. Is there a way I can *directly* recall it with one set of keystrokes typed into the Bash prompt? !tool qux doesn't work because in this scenario it will run tool foo . -x qux instead. I tried quoting it, but it looks like expansion happens earlier.

Assume that the history list contains the command e='echo a b c' and then $e. How to refer to the command $e using the history expansion feature of bash?

Often I'm writing a command in a bash prompt, where I want to get previous arguments, in the CURRENT line I'm typing out, and put in other places in the command. A simple example, would be if I want to rename a file. I would - type out the mv command - type the filename I want to move, ~/myTestFileWithLongFilename.txt - now I want to just change the extension of the file that I supplied in the first argument, without typing it again. Can I use history or bash completion in some way to autocomplete that first argument? $ mv ~/myTestFileWithLongFilename.txt ~/myTestFileWithLongFilename.md I know of course I could execute the incomplete command, to get it into the history, and then reference it with !$, but then my history is polluted with invalid commands, and I'm wondering if there's a better way

The following bash script prints out c, but I'm not sure why.

a=b
b=c
echo ${!a}

I believe that !a will be converted to the last command which began with a, so in this case that would be a=b. This should mean that the last command is equivalent to the following.

echo ${a=b}

However, that prints b, not c. Is anyone able to explain why this is the case?

When does history expansion happen? 1. From bash manual > Enclosing characters in double quotes (‘"’) preserves the literal value of all characters within the quotes, with the exception of ‘$’, ‘`’, ‘\’, and, when history expansion is enabled, ‘!’. Since double quotes are recognized at parsing stage by the parser, is it correct that history expansion must happen after parsing? If yes, when does it happen with respect to shell expansions such as brace expansion, parameter expansion, filename expansion, etc? 2. But I think that history expansion is provided by the readline of the shell, so is processed before lexical analysis and parsing? Just like auto-completion in shell. Am I missing something? Thanks.

!924 will execute that line from history. Is there a syntax where I can simply pull that line from history to the current line so I can edit it: i.e.: like using the up arrow with a built in search feature?

My modified search history lines have an asterisk next to them. I've searched unix.stackexchange.com and stackoverflow.com, but I yearn for a full explanation for the asterisks in my history (other than what the man page says). > Lines listed with a * have been modified. Example: $ history | tail 11850* 11851 ./block_ip.sh '23.228.114.203' 'evil probe' 11852 ./block_ip.sh DROP '23.228.114.203' 'evil probe $ _________________ In this example, a shell script had a third argument, but there was no error, and i ran it twice without specifying (DROP/ACCEPT). The modification was an attempt to blank out this history so that history-expansion would not lead me to the wrong command (again). I want to know more about this (*but I don't know what I don't know*). Please consider both angles of this: - how can i use this (*for instance can i get that original command if i need it*)? - how can a bad guy use this (*can someone hide their command history this way*)? ____________________________________ If a generic answer is too verbose, please note some of my settings: EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim HISTFILE=/home/jim/.bash_history SHELLOPTS=braceexpand:hashall:histexpand:history:interactive-comments:monitor:vi And this OS info (*It is RedHat...but Debian/Fedora/Ubuntu shouldn't vary much...should they?*): Linux qwerutyhgfjkd 3.10.0-693.11.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Mon Dec 4 23:52:40 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux I am using bash as my shell.