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

!:n

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.

Sample Output

# This handles white space embedded in an argument correctly
$ cp /etc/passwd "This little piggy went to market"
$ echo !:2 
This little piggy went to market

# Note that redirection operators are numbered as arguments
$ sort "This little piggy went to market" >"Home again, home again, jiggity jig"
$ mv !:3 !:1

# Abbreviations for the first and last argument
$ echo This little piggy went to market
$ echo "First argument !^, last argument: !$"
First argument This, last argument: market

By: hackerb9

2013-09-15 03:41:13

history bash bang argument bang-colon

1 Alternatives + Submit Alt

Get the Nth argument of the last command in $HISTFILE

This gets the Nth argument in the last line of your history file. This is useful where history is being written after each command, and you want to use arguments from the previous command in the current command, such as when doing copies/moving directories etc. I wrote this after getting irritated with having to continually type in long paths/arguments. You could also use $_ if all you want is the last argument. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ echo "This little piggy went to the market"
This little piggy went to the market
$ garg 5
went
```
0

function garg () { tail -n 1 ${HISTFILE} | awk "{ print \$$1 }" }

plasticphyte · 2013-09-10 04:07:46 11

What Others Think

Thanks for that. I always used !!:2 etc. I didn't realise I could save an entire keypress :-)

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What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

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