Linux in a Nutshell, Fifth Edition

Command History | 645

Bash and Korn

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2006 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

chosen not to cover those features here. See the Bash manpage for more

information.

Line-Edit Mode

Line-edit mode emulates many features of the vi and emacs editors. The history

list is treated like a file. When the editor is invoked, you type editing keystrokes to

move to the command line you want to execute. You can also change the line

before executing it. When you’re ready to issue the command, press the Enter

key.

In ksh, line-edit mode can be started in several ways. For example, these are

equivalent:

$ VISUAL=vi

$ EDITOR=vi

$ set -o vi Overrides value of VISUAL or EDITOR

For Bash, you must use either set -o vi or set -o emacs; assignment to the VISUAL

or EDITOR variables has no effect.

Note that vi starts in input mode; to type a vi command, press the Escape key

first.

Bash also provides a csh-style command-line editing mechanism, which we don’t

cover because the built-in vi and Emacs editing modes are easier to use.

Common editing keystrokes

The fc and hist Commands

“fc” stands for either “find command” or “fix command,” since it does both jobs.

Use fc -l to list history commands and fc -e to edit them. See the fc entry in the

later section “Built-in Commands (Bash and Korn Shells)” for more information.

vi emacs Result

k Ctrl-P Get previous command. ...