A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy

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?

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.

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.

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?

I'm much too lazy to memorise what all of these do, I'd rather just use fish wherever I can. Some combination of typing, arrow keys, and alt+arrow keys is always enough for me to find that thing I want to avoid fully retyping.

P.S. The alt+s shortcut is much quicker than writing sudo !!

I’ve been burnt before using ! and forgetting what command I typed previously, thus invoking the wrong command line.

!! is handy for the sudo example, but beyond that, I tend to prefer pressing the up arrow to cycle through the history rather than picking the first item. Eg:

  !ssh

vs

  ssh[up]

It’s the same number of key strokes but less error prone

sigh The usability of ! versus Ctrl+R in a shell is pretty much the same as the usability of ed versus vi, or moving files around using cp/mv versus using Midnight Commander or the like: in the first case, you have to accurately remember the past (which for many people is pretty difficult); in the second case, you don't have to, because you always have an immediate view of the state of the system and the preview of the effect you're about to incur.

And yeah, I've done editing with ed; it definitely beats "cat >file.txt" and copying parts around with head/tail and retyping the corrections manually, sure, and it works in every environment that can take line-oriented input from the user (so, literally everywhere), but that's about as much praise as I can give it.

! calls are vital for your sanity if you ever do remote support

trying to write shell commands on a hypervisor console window within a remote session on a jump box is excruciatingly laggy and annoying, and that's assuming your remote session connection to the client is behaving well in the first place

i love the mkdir example, so i’m going to exercise that muscle and see where it goes

and yeah ^r works, though i often type a few chars and ^p till i get the match. history-search-backward in your inputrc, iirc

edit: on a computer now :) my `if emacs` block, allowing arrows or ^n/^p to run through history. so for e.g., type "tar" and now as you shift through history with :binding:, it only shows history that began with "tar"

    $if mode=emacs
    "\e[A": history-search-backward
    "\e[B": history-search-forward
    "\C-p": history-search-backward
    "\C-n": history-search-forward
    ...
    $endif

If you find this interesting, don't wait for a random blogpost to appear by chance on HN, go read some manage today!

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.

Not knowing what command you are doing before you submit it is poor design. There are alternative ways to access old commands where you can see the actual command you are about to run before you submit it. The physical teletype era is over.

If you really want to be lazy, use a terminal file manager (I prefer lf[0]) it helps avoiding the cd && ls dance. That way, your history only contains commands you actually would want to rerun.

0: https://github.com/gokcehan/lf

Very annoying prose.