Home / ubuntu / Questions / 1526653
Accepted
Oli
Asked: 2024-09-13 16:44:45 +0800 CST

Keyboard shortcuts for running last command with changes?

  • 772

I frequently run sequences of administrative commands interactively in Bash. I read the responses before continuing but these chains can take several goes before I'm satisfied. These sorts of chains often involve a single system with multiple sub-commands, or "actions":

sudo apt depends package
sudo apt rdepends package
sudo apt purge package
sudo apt install package

systemctl --user status whatever.service
systemctl --user restart whatever.service

The "action", the thing you're actually doing is buried in the middle of the command. After almost two decades of this, it still takes me four steps to go from one command to the next:

  1. ↑ to show the previous command
  2. Ctrl+← until the carat is in the right place
  3. Alt+Backspace to remove a word
  4. Type the new "action", and Return.

What I'm asking for might seem lazy, but I've actually run into this a few times this morning on much longer commands, where it's taken a good few seconds to hunt through the line to replace the action. What I want to know is: is this really as good as it gets?

I'm regularly astounded by how much I don't know, so I'd not be too shocked to learn there's a quick-inline-word-replace shortcut that I've never heard of before.

command-line

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    In bash, you can use quick substitution with ^...^...:

    ^string1^string2^

    Quick Substitution. Repeat the last command, replacing string1 with string2. Equivalent to !!:s^string1^string2^.

    The trailing ^ can be omitted. Example:

    bash-5.2$ echo foo bar foo
foo bar foo
bash-5.2$ ^foo^baz
echo baz bar foo
baz bar foo

    So:

    sudo apt depends package
^dep^rdep
^rdepends^purge
^purge^install
    • 2