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Previous: 11.9 Running a Series of Commands on a File Chapter 11
The Lessons of History
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11.10 Check Your History First with :p

Here's how to be more sure of your history before you use it. First, some review of csh and bash history substitutions:

But if your memory is like mine (not very good), you might not be sure that !?af? will bring back the command you want. You can test it by adding :p to the end. The shell will print the substitution but won't execute the command line. If you like what you got, type !! to execute it. For example:

% !?af?:p
lp afile bfile cfile
% !!
lp afile bfile cfile
request id is 676

At the first prompt, the :p meant the command line was only printed. At the second prompt, I didn't use :p and the lp command was executed. The :p works with all history operators, not just with !?...?.

- JP


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