Bourne Again Shell.

bash magic

Some handy bash magic.

sudo last command

sudo !!

If you forgot sudo after executing your 3-lines-command, sudo bang! bang! will repeat the last entered command with sudo prefixed.

More parameter magic

bang	Expands to
!$	last argument of previous command
!$:p	just show last argument of previous command, don’t add to commandline
!*	all arguments of previous command
!!:1	first argument of previous command
!vi	last command that started with “vi“
!vi:p	just show last “vi“-call, don’t run it again
^err^corr	replace all occurrences of err by corr in the last command

Shortcuts

keypress	Description
Ctrl+w	Erase word
Ctrl+u	Erase from cursor to beginning of line
Ctrl+a	Move cursor to beginning of line
Ctrl+e	Move cursor to end of line
Ctrl+r	Search command history (type letters after this)

chdir to last one

cd -

Changes to previous directory.

Use output of previous command

Sometimes it’s handy to use the output of a previous command, e.g. a which. To do that, simply use the bang-bang with the backtick operator:

$ which php
/usr/bin/php
$ ls -l `!!`
ls -l `which php`
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 2008-06-12 02:47 /usr/bin/php -> /etc/alternatives/php
$ _Code language: JavaScript (javascript)