Commands tagged bang (2)

  • Get the Nth argument of the last command (handling spaces correctly)

    Bash's history expansion character, "!", has many features, including "!:" for choosing a specific argument (or range of arguments) from the history. The gist is any number after !: is the number of the argument you want, with !:1 being the first argument and !:0 being the command. See the sample output for a few examples. For full details search for "^HISTORY EXPANSION" in the bash(1) man page.    Note that this version improves on the previous function in that it handles arguments that include whitespace correctly. Show Sample Output


    10
    !:n
    hackerb9 · 2013-09-15 03:41:13 1
  • use a literal bang (exclamation point) in a command

    Seems obvious, but other seemingly simple ways to use it don't work: echo !whammy and echo "!whammy" both output: -bash: !whammy: event not found and this: echo "\!whammy" outputs: \!whammy with the slash :( you can also do any combinations of quotes for a complex string: echo "It's great to be able to use a bang ("'!'") in a command"'!' outputs: It's great to be able to use a bang (!) in a command! Show Sample Output


    -3
    echo '!'whammy
    sudopeople · 2009-03-26 23:34:33 4

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