Ctrl+r was a life-changer when I first learned it.
this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
147 points (98.0% liked)
Linux
48315 readers
742 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
I think it's the only shell shortcut I know haha
You can install fzf to make it fancier.
Same. For anyone using fish shell, this plugin is super-handy: https://github.com/PatrickF1/fzf.fish
Shout out to the very fine Atuin.sh. Give it a try, you won't regret it.
curl | sh...
Yep, I don't like these "recommended" methods, too. Fortunately, you can just use your favourite package manager instead: https://docs.atuin.sh/guide/installation/#manual-installation
If you have fzf installed, it is easy to integrate it with your bash history.
In my .bashrc, I have:
# Introduce fzf-driven functionality as described here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/fzf.
source /usr/share/fzf/key-bindings.bash
source /usr/share/fzf/completion.bash
Also, you may be interested in zoxide, which keeps track of paths you have navigated to.
Also from my .bashrc:
# Enable an autojump-like 'j' command. Use 'ji M' to select paths starting with M using fzf.
# This needs to always come last.
eval "$(zoxide init --cmd j bash)"
I just started using both recently and it's great. For the fzf file search, there's even some extension that can show a preview pane of text files and even images!
Here's something I use to search history for commands or keywords. I have this as a function in my profile:
function hgr() {
history | grep "$1"
}
history grep
Usage: hgr git to search for commands containing git.
Someone more knowledgeable may be able to point out ways to improve this.
you can get a lot of the way there with Control+R reverse history search (mentioned in the article) -- and it's interactive. With fzf you can even get fuzzy history searching (the first search result has a video). atuin puts history into a proper db, optional syncs across hosts, and, like fzf, enhances control+r
As a noob where do I find more handy tips like this? Alone with handy/popular apps?
Almost every windows app I had was on Linux (most were FOSS already) but I know there will be some unique or interesting ones.
For example in android there is Obtanium now to update apps direct from git, or the many was to use YT without ads.
This is not bad for a start (common commands):
https://linuxblog.io/90-linux-commands-frequently-used-by-linux-sysadmins/
Depending how deep you want to dive into Linux, there is a great ebooks collection available:
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/linux-for-seasoned-admins-oreilly-books
New to Linux as my daily driver. This is life changing. I was up/down arrowing like a madman!
To use the last argument of the last ran command, use the
Alt+.keys.
Sounds like a poor-man's !$ to me!
Alt+. can scroll up through the last few commands
$_ also works. I love Alt+. but sadly it doesn't work on any Mac terminal emulator I've found and, even more sadly, I am forced to use a Mac at work.
I haven't tried !$ so I'm not familiar with its function, but one nice thing about Alt+. is that you're not limited to the last argument of the most recent command; instead, it allows you to scroll backwards like Ctrl+R.
Fewer keystrokes, more features, and the ability to see what you're about to do explicitly. How does that make it the poor man's option?
Seems like it's terminal-emulator-specific rather than a built-in shell feature
No, it's a shell feature. Terminal emulators don't even know what shell are running typically, and I haven't heard of them adding shell features. That would require the terminal emulator knowing you're using bash, knowing how to interrogate history etc..
From man bash:
yank-last-arg (M-., M-_)
Insert the last argument to the previous command (the last word
of the previous history entry). With a numeric argument, behave
exactly like yank-nth-arg. Successive calls to yank-last-arg
move back through the history list, inserting the last word (or
the word specified by the argument to the first call) of each
line in turn. Any numeric argument supplied to these successive
calls determines the direction to move through the history. A
negative argument switches the direction through the history
(back or forward). The history expansion facilities are used to
extract the last word, as if the "!$" history expansion had been
specified.
Neat! Other replies saying it doesn't work on their machine, I'll have to try it out in a few different environments.
Why date time isn't turned on by default I'll never know.
Can you explain more? I'm getting into Linux and ops post has been a game changer.
This will do a far better job than I: https://ostechnix.com/how-to-enable-timestamp-in-bash-history-in-linux/
Am I blind or is ctrl+R not in that document?
I think you are blind (or maybe your version of the website is being truncated?)
Yep, found it :)
I've been using McFly to do my history searching. It's pretty good. I recommend changing the default sort from rank to time though
I wonder what "neural networks" they are using in it and how is it improving the accuracy
No idea. I personally didn't like it. I felt the time based sorting was more accurate for me
I have a bash function in fuzzy_arg that I bind to Alt-a to uses fzf for interactively inserting arguments from previous commands. It's Ctrl-r for Alt-. -- I've found it super useful for essentially inserting partial commands (single arguments) from the history
I always use reverse search. But, it is always good to learn something new.
is there a way to save commands from history? i tried to figure this out when i was starting to use linux regularly, to help learn commands and to make a reference for myself as to what the commands do. i'm familiar with things like man, info, tldr and others but i wanted to put things in my own words since i remember better that way.
what i'm wanting but can't seem to automate: -save commands from bash history to a file with only the command and arguments used, no line numbers or time stamps. -filenames can be kept, but if filenames are removable easily, that would be better. -file saved in should have the list sorted with any duplicates removed and happen after any terminal session ends. -i've read about changing the prompt but not done it correctly and not sure if possible or the safest way. -i've tried using .bash_logout but it doesn't seem to do anything and i'm not sure why.
this isn't too important anymore, as i've grown more comfortable with linux and bash but it bugs me that i never got it to work. i can copy and paste more detailed notes of what i tried but i'd need to redact a bunch of cursing and frustrated whining.
You mean sth like cat <(history | cut -c 8-) history.txt | sort | uniq > history.txt? Not sure if it possible to remove the file names.
It should probably work to put it in .bash_logout.
yeah that looks exactly like what i wanted, thanks! i probably should have asked my question a couple years ago but i was still very new to linux and didn't quite know the lingo. i'm still not quite sure how < works in general but i get the pipe and other redirects at least.
putting it in .bash_logout doesn't always work. something involving login shells i don't quite understand yet but i'll read more about it. i saw mention of putting
exit_session() { . "$HOME/.bash_logout" } trap exit_session SIGHUP
in .bashrc to make it always work but i also don't understand trap yet either so i'll look into that too.
thanks again, your reply helped point me in the right direction of things i want to learn!
when calling cat <(echo data from the stdin stream) from_file.txt, you get the data in the first argument from a stream.
With the .bash_logout I do not have much experience yet.