The single most useful thing in bash

I'll start to use it.

install zsh ;)

I guess I'm crazy enough to use fish that contains this feature by default ;-).

Or just use Ctrl-R !

as @matleclaire said, just use ctrl-r!

it's the pro version of "history | grep putyourcommandhere" :D thank you!

i think it is a middle term solution between CTRL+R and ZSH!

;)

This is better than [CTRL]+[R].

Also consider "set -o vi", for a set of vi powertools at the command line. Search history with regexes, traverse lines with vi keybindings, etc.

Using the arrow keys is almost as bad as using a mouse, I try to leave the homerow as little as possible. So I would just type 'cd /' then hit ctrl-r repeatedly until I find the command I want. Or more likely the first few characters of the directory I want to cd into and hit ctrl-r a few times until I have the command I want.

ALSO: This makes your bash complete case INsensitive... Just because nobody mentioned it explicitly(except the command itself ;).
And CTRL-R is not even close to what this does, honestly... try first.

@matleclaire this is not even close to CTRL-R.
What about case insensitive completion? At least on my machine CTRL-R is not helping there. Also, multiple CTRL-R are also not behaving like this.

This is better than ctrl + r and can be used together with zsh. win + win.

If you want to apply this globally put it in /etc/inputrc. On debian/ubuntu the file is already present, just un-comment the line with '"\e[5~": history-search-backward' etc and check the other nice options!

This is awesome!

Solved my long lasting confusion. I know ctrl+r but seems I can not search forward if I accidentally missed the command line I'm searching for. The arrow keys are more friendly.

Nice. I've been using this feature since I've switched to ZSH + Oh-my-zsh, where it comes enabled by default.

Huh! On bash it is same as using PageUp and PageDown. Type cd / and do PageUp.

@moiseevigor I was going to say, on Ubuntu something similar already seems to be in place! How does this differ?

Personally I find this annoying. At times I'll (for whatever reason) already have something typed into the prompt, and I realize I need a command from recent history, so I press up a few times. In this case I'd first have to press ctrl+a and ctrl+k to kill what I've already typed, or things would get very strange.

It's a cool feature, but it does come down to personal preference, and personally, ctrl+r is more than good enough.

It might be worth mentioning though that I use ZSH and oh-my-zsh.

@glitchmr not only you :)

zsh is for hipsters :-P

@sheerun or even better: OhMyZsh! https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh.git

https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh

+

zsh history-substring-search plugin

= awesomeness in ZSH

@ipetepete Actually I prefer antigen, and enhancing zsh by myself :)

awesome tip .

@glitchmr I use fish as well. I feel that lots of people using zsh would love fish if they tried it.

This actually has nothing to do with bash and has more to do with readline. So long as your shell supports readline these features should be available.

http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/readline.html

awesome!

Or just use :
alias hs="history | grep"
Save it to your .bashrc file to make it permanent.

mind = blow

OhMyZsh! is super-hipster!

you should really check out fish (http://ridiculousfish.com/shell/)

Awesome!

I prefer "\ep" for history-search-backward and "\en" history-search-forward. In this way, C-p retrieves the previous command from history and M-p retrieves the previous matching command from history. It makes more sense to me.

I used to use fish, but switched to zsh (with oh-my-zsh). The backwards compatibility does wind up making life easier and there aren't many fish features I miss.

Step 1: Install https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh

Step 2: Edit your ~/.zshrc, find the "plugins" line, and add "history-substring-search" to the end. Here's mine:

$ grep "plugins=" ~/.zshrc
plugins=(git … history-substring-search) 

Yeah. Start using zsh and then make your dotfiles better.

The problem with these configuration is it prints ;5D and ;5C when CTRL+<Left> and CTRL+<Right> are pressed instead of moving cursor to one word left and right.

hey, nice tip, but the cursor keeps its position at the beginng, how can I set to make the cursor locate at the end of the command when moving backwd/fwd? thanks

I already have the show-all-if-ambiguous and completion-ignore-case enabled in my input.rc and ctrl+r takes benefit of that.

One thing ctrl+r does differently is that you can search in the middle of your command (and not just the beginning), which I find more useful.

For example, I have way too many commands that start with cd, but if I use ctrl+r and type in the unique part of the filepath that I want, it jumps straight to the command I'm looking for.

The first two lines are actually useful. But the last two things will get very annoying very fast, specially if you're used to working with a Unix-type CLI often.

If you want CTRL+<right> and CTRL+<left> to continue working, you'll need these changes as well:

"\e[1;5C": forward-word

"\e[1;5D": backward-word

just get guake....

This was very very util ! thanks!! :D
I'm using this "bash shortcut" in my Linode, it's excellent! Thanks again

no way ... it is awesome

Neat!

I can understand people's love for zsh, but it doesn't help people who use Bash and just want to improve it.

two cents

works on bash
For csh use
bindkey -k up history-search-backward
bindkey -k down history-search-forward

Thanks for the tip, but I like my ups and downs the way they are. Never used ctl+r but will now!

Good one

-bash: \e[A:: command not found

on OS X, what's wrong?

thats totally awesome!

thats totally awesome!

thanks for sharing man

awsome man..

Its a good tip, but yeah - zsh has this and soooo much more.

you can get even more power with zsh zle http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Zsh-Line-Editor.html

or simply fc

Perhaps you could consider BASH history suggest box https://github.com/dvorka/hstr that greatly simplifies navigation through the history and its management.

@glitchmr

Fish has a well deserved spot in the hall of fame as far as shells go, seems valid enough to me ^^

This is much better than Ctrl-R. Thank you very much..

I still prefer ZSH, has this built in.

Ctrl+R is broken for me... never worked quite right :( Didn't correctly delete previous prompt when I was scrolling through history and other various glitches.

:+1:

Could do... could do... or, and I'm just tossing this out there...
"\e[A": history-substring-search-backward "\e[B": history-substring-search-forward
Which accomplishes the same thing, except if you start typing a command first and THEN hit up, it FILTERS your history to only include those commands that start with the same text as you typed. Example:

If my history reads:
echo "hello" echo "world" ls -la lsof
...and I type ec at my prompt, then hit the up arrow, it will only cycle through...
echo "hello" echo "world"
...likewise, if I typed ls at my prompt and hit up arrow...
ls -la lsof