Unix in a Nutshell, 4th Edition

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.

In ksh93, the fc command has been renamed hist, and alias fc=hist is predefined.

Examples

    $ history             
                     List the last 16 commands
    $ fc -l 20 30         
                     List commands 20 through 30
    $ fc -l -5            
                     List the last 5 commands
    $ fc -l cat           
                     List all commands since the last command beginning with cat
    $ fc -l 50            
                     List all commands since command 50
    $ fc -ln 5 > doit     
                     Save command 5 to file doit
    $ fc -e vi 5 20       
                     Edit commands 5 through 20 using vi
    $ fc -e emacsEdit previous command using emacs

The following only work in the Korn shell, which predefines the r alias:

    $ r              
                     Reexecute previous command
    $ r cat          
                     Reexecute last cat command
    $ r doc=Doc      
                     Substitute, then reexecute last command
    $ r chap=doc cReexecute last command that begins with c, but change string chap to doc

For both shells, the interactive line-editing is easier to use than fc, since you can move up and down in the saved command history using your favorite editor commands (as long as your favorite editor is either vi or Emacs!). Current versions of both shells also let you use the Up and Down arrow keys to traverse the command history.