• Introduction
• History Parameters
• Some Examples
• References

Introduction

Bash is a powerful command language. There are so many books and many Here I just introduced some useful history parameters.

History Parameters

1. The last parameter: !$. It will be replaced by the last parameter in the last command.
2. The n-th parameter: !:n. n starts from 0. Then !:0 is the command itself in the last command and !:1 is the first parameter in the last command.
3. All parameters: !:1-$. It will be replaced by all the parameters in the last command. Subset parameters: !:n-m. It will be replaced by n-th to m-th parameters.
4. The last parameter in the last n-th line: !-n:$. Sometimes, we need to run other commands before re-run a history command. In this case, !-n:$ will be helpful. !-2:$ means the last parameter in the command before the last one.
5. The directory of the parameter: !$:h. If the last parameter in the last command is a file in a full path, !$:h will help us get the directory of that parameter.
6. The n-th parameter in current line: !#:n. It will be replaced by the n-th parameter in the current command. It helps a lot when we want to create a backup file.
7. Find and replace: !!:gs. The full usage is !!:gs/search_string/replace_string. It will search a string in all the parameters in the last command and replace them with another string.

Some Examples

cp /from/path/file_wrong_name /to/path/filename
# cp: cannot stat '/from/path/file_wrong_name': No such file or directory
cp /from/path/file_right_name !$

tar -cvf folder_name tar_name.tar
# tar: failed to open
!:0 !:1 !:3 !:2

pong -c 4 www.google.com
# No command 'pong' found
ping !:1-$

cp /from/path/file_wrong_name /to/path/filename
# cp: cannot stat '/from/path/file_wrong_name': No such file or directory
ls /from/path
# file_right_name
cp /from/path/file_right_name !-2:$

cat /from/path/file_wrong_name
# cat: /from/path/file_wrong_name: No such file or directory
ll !$:h
ll !-2:h

cp /path/file_original !#:1.bak
# cp /path/file_original /path/file_original.bak

echo this is tsutsu.
!!:gs/ts/zh/
# echo this is zhuzhu.

References

1. Bash Reference Manual - 9.3 History Expansion