LINUX
COMMANDS
Contents | Previous
| Next
The command history and other shell tricks
Press the up and down cursor keys to move through your
command history, and press Enter to run the command.
Note:
What you're actually looking at is the line-by-line contents
of your ~/.bash_history file. All the commands
you entered during a session will be appended to this file
each time you log-out.
$ history
history
Display your entire command history.
history | less
Display your entire command history in the less program.
history 4
Display the last four commands you entered.
!ls
Re-run the last command that started with: ls
Intermediate tip:
Instead you could press Ctrl+R for the
more powerful reverse incremental search, which builds the
search string as you type.
!16
Re-run the command with the ID 16, i.e. the 16th line in
your ~/.bash_history file.
history | grep home
List the commands from your command history containing the
string, 'home'.
Other shell tricks
Press the Tab key where a filename or directoryname
is expected, to have the bash shell attempt to complete
the filename or directoryname. (Referred to as tab completion.)
If the computer beeps, press the Tab key again
to list all possibilities.
Note:
If it's not clear to the shell that you want a filename
or directoryname completed, for example, by typing rm
at the start of the command-line and pressing the Tab
key, the shell will attempt to complete a filename from
your path. This can be useful for displaying the
commands that begin with a particular string. (See Environment
variables chapter for explanation of your path.)
Press Ctrl+Page Up or Ctrl+Page
Down to scroll back and forward half a screen, respectively.
Press Ctrl+U to clear the input line.
Press Ctrl+A or Ctrl+E
to move to the start and end of the input line, respectively.
Press Ctrl+T (transpose), to have the
two characters before the cursor switch places (if no character
is under the cursor), or the character under the cursor
and the previous character. Used to correct typos.
Separate commands with a semi-colon (;), to enter
multiple commands in one go, e.g.:
clear; ls -alh
If a filename has a space in it, either enclose the path
in single or double quotes or escape each space with a backslash,
e.g.:
cd 'work/my reports'
cd "work/my reports"
cd work/my\ reports
Contents | Previous
| Next
