history | grep thethingyou'relookingforIt’s too early to call me out like that.
zsh-history-substring-search
I lazily type part of the thing I want like “sys” and then ctrl+⬆️/⬇️ and
sudo systemctl start libvirtdetc. appear like magic.You know the one command I hate? CTL vs CTRL. There is no damned consistency I can see. Is it systemctl reboot or systemctrl reboot?
i’ve literally never seen ‘systemctrl’? it’s always ctl for the command-line utilities
More like ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️ mother fucker ⬇️
Ctrl r
set -o vi
ESC k /command
or just grep history…
Everyone sharing their Ctrl+R tips, here’s my Control+R question:
How does scope work? Some command history only seems to exist in certain tabs.
Also sometimes I Ctrl+R in a tab then the command is there but I forget I need a different one first, so I ctrl+c but the next time I search for that original command somehow it doesn’t exist anymore.
I’m using the default terminal on Nobara (fedora based).
This actually doesn’t depend on your terminal but on the shell running inside it. Bash is the default on most distros. I have also frequently had this issue. There might be config to fix it.
I switched to fish instead of bash, and now I use fzf and the https://github.com/PatrickF1/fzf.fish plugin and it works GREAT. There might be a similar thing for bash, I don’t know.
That looks awesome! Thanks for the rabbit hole 😅
As far as I remember, there is a bash setting that controls whether the command history is written immediately after execution (in which case it is immediately available on all tabs/windows of the console) or after closing the session (in which case it will be available next time/potentially lost if the window is forcibly closed etc).
The default is the second one as far as I remember.
That said, I had changed to a more powerful one in zsh years ago, so it’s been a while…
Thanks, I worked it out. Not a setting as such, but you can use PROMPT_COMMAND to run an action to insert into history each time a prompt is run, as described here.
Though I have started down a rabbit hole of looking at other options for the shell.
history | grep then !cmd_number
I used to be like this but people seriously. CTRL+R
Do it. Don’t make this one of those things you’ve heard about and just never got around to trying. Open your terminal right now and CTRL+R and type any part of the command you did before. If the command you want is not showing first just hit CTRL+R again to go to the next one back.
DO IT.
Edit: I did learn from this thread today though that ZSH has it set to where you can just type part of what you’re looking for then hit up to do the same thing. Neat!
CTRL+R + FZF is the goat. You just need to vaguely remember the command and you’ll find it.
This changed my life when I discovered it. Also using
agas alternative to ack.FZF Vim plugin is also gold!
Holy shit. I just tried it.
ctrl+ris a revelation! How the fuck did I not know about this?If you want to level up ctrl-r, upgrade to Atuin: https://atuin.sh/
You can empower Ctrl+r event more by using fzf. After I started using it, I can’t imagine going back to without it.
WHAT THE FUCJ IS THIS SORCERY BRO I’VE BEEN USING LINUX FOR AGES AND NEVER KNEW THIS BROOOOOOOOOO
Edit: I did learn from this thread today though that ZSH has it set to where you can just type part of what you’re looking for then hit up to do the same thing. Neat!
Fish too, it’s fantastic.
I thought command line users like typing things. I avoid typing where possible, and dont use the command line on Linux.
Part of the reason for a command line is being able to reproduce commands exactly. Going back through the command history is an important part of that.
For a while I was using a VPN where the connections we all via command line. I loved it, because once you type it, it’s just up up up to find that location again and swap around.
Now I have to use the mouse and click like a damn fool!
I work as a software developer. My team mate once said he was a “mouse and click kinda guy” when asked why he didn’t use the terminal for git.
Ugh, I bet he never pressed CTRL + C or P in his life.
In my first professional programming job writing custom software for clients in 1995, one of our standard sales pitches to clients was the idea that a GUI-based application would do away with the need for command prompts. This was always met with applause and great rejoicing. It’s kind of remarkable that command prompts are still going strong thirty years later. I’m sure nobody would appreciate having this phenomenon compared to the Amish so I won’t do it. But I think it’s pretty cool that the Amish are still around doing their thing.
A GUI makes sense if you want things to be approachable. A CLI makes sense, if you want things to be well customizable.
E.g. compare LaTeX script with setting formatting in an office program. Yes i see directly how the formatting is. And if a good Formatting standard is set, it can be used quite well nowadays. But if just want to put one Paragraph differently in order to fit a picture or table or something then things quickly get messy.
GUI is great, unless you want to automate something… Then you either want a CLI or API
Nah, companies found solution to that long ago.
…
…HOW’S IT GOING JOHNY, GOT THAT LIST PARSED YET?
People do not just point and nod. Using words and not just guestures makes life easier in many, but not all situations.
Ctrl+R
https://atuin.sh/ Does all that and a lot more, like showing if the command succeeded and which directory it was run in
What the fuck!? How am I only learning this now, after years of linux as daily driver?!
Just checking, because I learnt to type before I worked this out, and because surely someone reading doesn’t know: press tab. Bash will fill in file names from your current directory.
E.g. say you have files fred1file, fred2file, jim.
Type f then press tab, it will fill to “fred”. Then press 2 and press tab again and it will fill the full “fred2file”.
Have a play, it works in heaps of situations.
Shit is usually a pain in the ass. The challenge is divining how much of a pain in the ass something has to be that someone else might have made a solution for it.
I didn’t know you could ctrl+shift+c to copy in the terminal until a month ago when my linux n00b wife said "there has to be a better way to do this. I’ve been right clicking to copy for 10 years.
most DE’s have a thing where you can paste highlighted text using the middle mouse button
It’s also independent from the Clipboard so you can do it while keeping your clipboard
Middle mouse button?!
Most mouse wheels can be clicked in place of the middle button, which has been removed from most modern computer mouses.
It’s also known as mouse 3 if you need to find it on your mouse or want to bind it to something else.
And ctrl + shift + v to paste, just in case
If that doesn’t work, Shift + Insert.
you can also just use ctrl + insert for copy and shift + insert for paste.
I used to have shift insert in my muscle memory from Windows, but since my job has used a Mac since 2020 it’s fallen out. I never knew Ctrl insert was copy, that’s nifty! Another tool in the arsenal. It will be useful when copy in select isn’t set and I don’t know how to set it up lol.
I have always used ctrl/shift insert, I never got used to ctrl c/v. Glad you have new tools!
MinGW can do that, too. Useful for Git.
Ctrl+c to copy, Ctrl+v to paste, Ctrl+z to undo last change (chain it multiple times to reverse time) hopes this helps, ctrl+tab also changes applications on macos and Linux to my knowledge. If you know anymore let’s put them together
Congratulations! I remember where I was when I first learned it (in a noisy server room at the back of a machine shop).
Now pair it with FZF for fuzzy finding – it’s surprisingly easy to set up, just following any guide. It’s insanely useful. I find myself even doing things like typing:
$ xinput --disable $(xinput --list | grep -i touchpad | grep 'id=[0-9]\+' -o | cut -d= -f2) # Disable synaptic touchpad trackpad pointercommands with these like comments on the ends as sort of “tags” so I can ctrl+r search for them later. Yes, I know I could just use a named function, but this is like the step just before that–before I know if I’ll be issuing the same command all the time, or just for the next couple weeks. (This one was from when I was resting my notebook on my laptop.)
I like this; I have a lot of commands that I don’t use often enough to justify an alias, but still need to rerun all the time. thanks!
As usual, that’s documented (we can RTFM).
Before trying ctrl-s, you may want to disable software flow control: run
stty -ixon& add it to your initialization files. Otherwise, you’ll pause terminal output. ctrl-q resumes terminal output.sttyreveals terminal special characters$ stty -a ⁝ intr = ^C; quit = ^\; erase = ^?; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>; eol2 = <undef>; swtch = <undef>; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R; werase = ^W; lnext = ^V; discard = ^O; … ⁝These special characters/keys often perform special functions. To illustrate
- ctrl-d on empty input typically exits/logs out of interactive terminal applications (including shells)
- ctrl-u discards input (useful for inputs like password prompts that don’t echo input back)
- ctrl-v inputs next character literally (such as tab)
Use mcfly and it will be even better.
This but with FZF and
agI’m shocked how far I had to scroll down before it was mentioned, I was getting scared I would have to say it lol
I’m not going to say how long I used linux before learning this. It isn’t “this many days old”, but it may as well be.
I have 7 headless linux boxes running.
Hey! I’ve seen you before! You’re the unhinged jackass noticer!
…i looked in your comment history for too long to figure out why though. https://lemmy.world/comment/18001123
Wait till you learn about
!?.^r is superior, though.
This is what I love about Linux - always learning new things!
Even quicker with zsh or atuin: write the first few letters then arrow up to cycle through all matches
Even quicker with fish: Write the first few letters then it auto-suggests the last-run command matching that prefix (and then you can still arrow up to cycle through all matches).
(There is also a zsh plugin for that, called zsh-autosuggestions.)
A lot of stuff assumes Bash, so occasionally when the syntax differs its slightly annoying; sometimes you have to modify a few lines of a file or something (or run it as in Bash manually). Fish is so nice though. It really should replace Bash for almost everyone. If you really need Bash you can still use it.
With script files, you can (and should regardless of Fish usage) put a shebang at the top, like
or. Then it will run with Bash as you’d expect.I also recommend not setting Fish as your system-wide default shell (since then a missing shebang will cause it to run in Fish), but rather just have your terminal emulator start
fishby default.And yeah, outside of scripting, if I notice a command requires Bash syntax (which you can often tell from Fish’s syntax highlighting turning red), then I just run
bash, execute the Bash command in there and thenexitback out of there.Having said all that, I’m not trying to take away from your point. If I wasn’t just joking around, I would caveat a Fish recommendation just as much.
Yeah, it’s just some scripts that come with programs sometimes not including that is the issue. Like I said, it isn’t a big issue, just occasionally requires small edits if you try to run the script in Fish, or, like you said, running them with Bash.
I main ZSH and I’ve been CTRL+R’ing for years damn here I am a fool
Glad to be of service
I like to imagine someone added it in for their own personal use and told nobody because surely they are the only one.
It was publicized as part of
readline, I think.…in like 1989.
I love this one but is the gif moving at 0.5 frames a second or is it just me
Normal for me. Thanks for pointing out it was a gif. I never realize they’re gifs because I have to “open in external” for them to actually move.
For me, it looks normal (about 8 frames a second, probably).
It works fine for me if I click on it but the embedded one is stuttering.
Me, playing indie games on Apple and doing the same with xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ~filepath
- yes
history | grep [the thing]
CTRL+R [the thing]
please i beg you
with grep I see all the alternatives, Ctl+R just shows me one
Combine ctrl+R with fzf and get the best of both worlds
For me
ctrl-ris faster most of the time,history | grep [command]is better if I can’t easily pattern match (don’t remember it exactly, using several flag variations, etc.). they’re both good tools.You can press up
seeing multiple at the same time is more helpful though
Ppsshh. Not lazy enough. Create that in a script and call it “hgrep” and drop it into path.
Why not just use an alias?
That’s the right way, yes.
Brilliant
i was doing
cat ~/.bash_history | grep thingwhich is stupid so i started doinggrep "thing" ~/.bash_historynow you’re telling me i should do
history | grep thingi can’t win
Some would call the former command cat abuse.
In short, unless you want the contents of a file printed to stdout (or multiple files concatenated), the command can probably be written without
cat, instead using the filename as an argument (grep pattern file) or IO redirection (cmd < file).Stylistics and readability are another thing though.
Exactly! Now copy paste it into Joplin where you’ll never see it ever again.
