Your shell's exclamation mark isn't for yelling—it's for being lazy
A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy.
Event designators in bash, zsh, and other shells let you repeat commands and reuse arguments without arrow-key mashing. This guide covers the basics—like `!!` and `!$`—and dives into word designators and modifiers that slice up previous commands. It also highlights `fc`, a POSIX tool that opens your command history in your editor for powerful batch edits. Learn the essential shortcuts, how to verify expansions safely, and how to disable or customize the `!` trigger if it gets in your way.
Exclamation marks are not for shouting—at least not in your shell.
- userbinator
Every time someone brings this up, I think "oh right, I could do that" and then immediately forget. Especially if you can type quickly, it's easier to just "drive straight ahead" with the command you want, than add another "mental branch" to interrupt the flow. For the same reason I'll often Ctrl+C and start again instead of trying to backspace and correct.
- Terr_
Rather than a sense of "cool" or "useful" somehow I end up just feeling despair at how organically convoluted it is to determine what something on a command-line really does. To be fair, I've always been biased towards "only the simplest scripts should be in shell languages."
This also adds an intriguing new dimensions to reviewing/verifying shell commands as benign and correct... How long until LLMs start (ab)using the trick in little requests they want me to approve?
- RMPR
If you really want to be lazy, use a terminal file manager (I prefer lf[0]) it helps avoiding the cd && ls dance. That way, your history only contains commands you actually would want to rerun.