Torsten Curdt’s weblog

I cannot remember where I found this and I always forget to use it. But this so called “bang command” should save a lot of typing. Let’s say you executed…

% which firefox
% make
% ./foo -f foo.conf
% vi foo.c bar.c

Now by using the “!” you can access tokens from the previous command.

Full line:     % !!            becomes:   % vi foo.c bar.c
Last arg :     % svn ci !$     becomes:   % svn ci bar.c
All args :     % svn ci !*     becomes:   % svn ci foo.c bar.c
First arg:     % svn ci !!:1   becomes:   % svn ci foo.c

Or you can even use a search pattern.

Full line:     % !./f          becomes:   % ./foo -f foo.conf
Full line:     % vi `!whi`     becomes:   % vi `which firefox`
Last arg :     % vi !./f:$     becomes:   % vi foo.conf
All args :     % ./bar !./f:*  becomes:   % ./bar -f foo.conf
First arg:     % svn ci !vi:1  becomes:   % svn ci foo.c

Pretty nifty.

3. January 2007 | bash