In zsh this is configured with
bindkey "^[OA" up-line-or-beginning-search # Up
bindkey "^[OB" down-line-or-beginning-search # DownA mistake 3 words earlier? No problem: <esc>3bcw and I'm good to go.
Want to delete the whole thing? Even easier: <esc>cc
I can even use <esc>v to open the command inside a fully-fledged (neo)vim instance for more complex rework.
If you use (neo)vim already, this is the best way to go as there are no new shortcuts to learn and memorize.
Be careful working CTRL + W into muscle memory though, I've lost count of how many browser tabs I've closed by accident...
He had in his path a script called `\#` that he used to comment out pipe elements like `mycmd1 | \# mycmd2 | mycmd3`. This was how the script was written:
```
#!/bin/sh
cat
```You're typing a long command, then before running it you remember you have to do some stuff first. Instead of Ctrl-C to cancel it, you push it to history in a disabled form.
Prepend the line with # to comment it, run the commented line so it gets added to history, do whatever it is you remembered, then up arrow to retrieve the first command.
$ long_command
<Home, #>
$ #long_command
<Enter>
$ stuff_1 $ stuff_2
<Up arrow a few times>
$ #long_command
<home, del>
$ long_command
One thing I dislike about brace expansions is that they don't play nicely with tab completion. I'd rather have easy ways to e.g. duplicate the last token (including escaped/quoted spaces), and delete a filename suffix. And, while I'm on that topic, expand variables and `~` immediately (instead of after pressing enter).
Something like this:
# Prevent certain strings from appearing in the history
# Anything starting with a leading space is ignored
# Anything containing "--force" or "whatever" is ignored
function zshaddhistory() {
emulate -L zsh
if ! [[ "$1" =~ "(^ |--force|whatever)" ]] ; then
print -sr -- "${1%%$'\n'}"
fc -p
else
return 1
fi
}And not only cd. Gotta love 'git checkout -'
printf %s\\n "$_"
dcd() {
# If no argument is given, do nothing
[ -z "$1" ] && return
# Find the first matching directory under the current directory
local dir
dir=$(find . -type d -path "*$1*" -print -quit 2>/dev/null)
# If a directory was found, cd into it
[ -n "$dir" ] && cd "$dir"
}
I thought this would be way too slow for actual use, but I've come to love it.Stuff like NVM or Oh My ZSH will add a few seconds to your shell startup time.
# Use F2 to edit the current command line:
autoload -U edit-command-line
zle -N edit-command-line
bindkey '^[OQ' edit-command-line # f2 is ^[OQ; to double check, run `xargs` and then press f2`CTRL + U and CTRL + K CTRL + W`
What I like about these key combinations is that they are kind of universal. A lot of programs on Linux and Mac support all these key combinations out of the box. And that's like a game changer in productivity, especially jumping to the start or the end of the line or jumping forward and backward per word is making working only with the keyboard so much more nice. And in editors together so AVY, you can even get a faster flow of jumping around.
CTRL+L clears the visible output but you can still scroll up in your buffer to see the rest, clear will clear that scroll up buffer too.
I've written about and demo'd this in https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/clear-vs-ctrl-l-in-your-shell.
# it's in my PATH but can't remember where
which myscript
vi `!!` IFS=' ''
'
Hint: the spaces between the first two apostrophes are actually one <Tab>.This does not affect the already written script (you don't need to press Tab instead of space to separate commands and arguments in the script itself), but by making <Tab> and <LF> be the “internal field separators” will allow globbing with less quoting worries while still allowing for `files=$(ls)` constructs.
Example:
IFS=' ''
'
echo hello >/tmp/"some_unique_prefix in tmp"
cat /tmp/some_unique_prefix*
fn="My CV.txt"
echo "I'm alive" >/tmp/$fn
cat /tmp/$fn
Of course this will still fail if there happens to be a filename with <Tab> in it. globalias() {
local raw word
# raw last blank-separated token, exactly as typed
raw=${LBUFFER##\* }
# shell-parsed last word
word=${${(z)LBUFFER}[-1]}
# if user typed \alias, don't expand
if [[ $raw == \\* ]]; then
zle self-insert
return
fi
if alias -- ${(q)word} &>/dev/null; then
zle _expand_alias
zle expand-word
fi
zle self-insert
}zle -N globalias bindkey ' ' globalias
If I do something the slow way it's usually because I don't do the operation enough to burn it into my memory, or I got burned by accidentally hitting something close but incorrect once and closed the tab or something.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -eEuo pipefail
# shellcheck disable=SC2034
DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )"
#######################################################<esc> puts you into vi mode at the cli prompt with all the semantics of the editor.
These carpal tunnel riddled hands can’t be bothered to reach for ctrl or alt let alone arrow keys.
The vi editing mode is always present in ksh, but is optional in dash. If present, the POSIX standard requires that "set -o vi" enable this mode, although other methods to enable it are not prohibited (such as inputrc for bash/readline), and as such is a "universal trick."
The article is relying on some Emacs mode, which is not POSIX.
$_ is not POSIX if I remember correctly.
History in vi mode is easier, just escape, then forward slash (or question mark) and the search term (regex?), then either "n" or "N" to search the direction or its reverse.
I've seen a lot of people who don't like vi mode, but its presence is the most deeply standardized.
I tried this in zsh and it wasn't the default behaviour which immediately made me nope from the shell altogether, among all the other quirks. I've just been using bash for far too long to switch to something different.
[0] https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2013/06/11/keeping-persistent-...
> The Backspace Replacements
Also known as "emacs editing mode". Funnily enough, what POSIX mandates is the support for "vi editing mode" which, to my knowledge, almost nobody ever uses. But it's there in most shells, and you can enable it with "set -o vi" in e.g. bash.
Also, increase your `$HISTSIZE` to more than you think you would need, there have been cases where it helped me find some obscure command I ran like 3 years before.
`| sudo tee file` when current user does not have permission to >file
It's often faster than hitting CTRL+C and waiting for process cleanup, especially when many resources are used. Then you can do e.g. `kill -9 $(jobs -p)` to kill the stopped tasks.
Ctrl + _ (Ctrl + underscore)Quite a few useful ones
I’ve started keeping a tiny cheatsheet just to avoid rediscovering the same tricks over and over.
I've never used the majority of these tricks for decades, except for brace expansion, process substitutions, and complex redirections.
For the CTRL + R tip, you can make it even better if you install fzf. Massively improves searching through history. It's worth the install just for that one feature.
Best thing I ever did as a dev was start spending more time in the terminal. Getting familiar with the tools and how they interact makes life so much easier.
$ some_long_command -with -args -easily -forgotten # thatspecialthing
... Some weeks later .. $ CTRL-R<specialthing>
.. finds: $ some_long_command -with -args -easily -forgotten # thatspecialthing
Need to see all the special things you've done this week/whenever? $ history | grep "\#"
...Makes for a definite return of sanity ..
Close tab.
I ought to migrate away from shell scripting and just keep the shell for interactive use. Unfortunately I have cursed myself by getting competent-ish with P. shell and Bash scripting. Meaning I end up creating maintenance headaches for my future self.
(Echoes of future self: ... so I asked an LLM to migrate my shell scripts to Rust and)
Anyway with the interactive shell stuff. Yeah the I guess Readline features are great. And beyond that I can use the shortcut to open the current line in an editor and get that last mile of interactivity when I want it. I don’t really think I need more than that?
I tried Vim mode in Bash but there didn’t seem to be a mode indicator anywhere. So dropped that.
Edit: I just tested in my Starship.rs terminal: `set -o vi`. Then I got mode indicators. Just with a little lag.
Simple, no need to learn any commandline these days.
I used to use arch and all, and managed many big projects. I find little value in learning new tools anymore, just feed it docs and it generated working plan most of the time
Now I've moved to coding in Haskell, which i find suits me better than wasting my time with cli and exploring what options all these cli tools have.