Edit previous commands in shell before running them
Let's say you run a certain command with some parameters (like opening a file in vim
). Then you want to run basically the same command, but instead of opening the file in vim
, you just want to view the contents with cat
.
The most common way of doing this would be either:
- Writing the whole command again like this (very slow)
sudo cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list
- Clicking the arrow up button on you keyboard to bring up the previous command (
sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list
) and then changingvim
tocat
by moving the cursor using arrow key on the line or some other shortcut- This is the way I usually used to do it, but found it oftentimes pretty tedious - especially jumping to the word, deleting it and writing a new one
Recently I found out you can do thisit a different way and it's acually better for my workflow once youI getgot used to it.
- Run the command you want to run first
sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list
- Then if you want to do the same thing, but just with cat, write this in the shell and then hit enter
!!:gs/vim/cat
As you can see below, this will run the previos command, but replacing the word vim with cat
user~$ vim /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list
user~$ !!:gs/vim/cat
cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list
deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/nginx-archive-keyring.gpg] http://nginx.org/packages/mainline/debian bookworm nginx
!!
- Bring up the previous command:gs
- Global search and replace - https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/116623/xy-unix-trick-for-all-instances-in-last-command/116626#116626/vim/cat
- Replace the wordvim
withcat
This can be useful e.g when you edit a file and then want to print out the edited contents into the shell to copy to a ticket or documentation for example