Bash Shortcuts For Maximum Productivity

A note to Mac users: Instead of Alt, you must press escape key. For example, Esc+b moves the cursor backward one word in bash, but you'll probably want to use option instead, so check 'Use option as meta key' in Terminal's settings (under keyboard tab).

But if it's not very handy, you can set 'option+left arrow' to move cursor one word backward. To do that, open Terminal's settings, go to keyboard and add a shortcut for left arrow (with 'option' as modifier), and leave the action to 'send string to shell'. Then click on the textbox below that and press esc (which should print '\033') and then 'b', or simply type '\033b' in the textbox.

Just this simple shortcut makes Mac's Terminal 1000 times better.

Totally agreed.

I also have 'option+right arrow' mapped to move cursor one word forward (use the same instructions as above, substituting 'f' for 'b').

One of my favorite bash shortcuts is binding the up arrow to history-search-backward. This is the first page I found that concisely explains how; the variant in the second comment is the one actually in my .bashrc:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2003102617423686...

So if you've typed `verylongcommand` some indeterminate time in the past, you can probably just type "ver", and you'll have it. Very convenient.

The things he calls "bang commands" are actually "event designators" (!!, !blah), "word designators" ($) and "word modifiers" (:p). There are links to docs for each at the bottom of this page: http://www.gnu.org/s/bash/manual/html_node/History-Interacti...

I use them all the time, and anyone watching over my shoulder always asks what that was. Learn !!, !$, and a few modifiers. You'll be glad you did. Personally, I use !$ constantly (and variations like !-2$, which gets you the last arg from 2 commands ago). The "h" modifier is handy, too. It's like dirname for the word. Consider this example, where you copy a file to some deep path, and then cd to that dir to continue working with the copy:

    $ cp foo.txt /some/really/long/destination/bar.txt
    $ cd !$:h
    $ # (do more with ./bar.txt)

The substitution (:s) and global substitution (:gs) modifiers are also useful:

    $ echo some args
    some args
    $ !!:s/some/more
    more args

(Also, note that his explanation of !* is actually incorrect. He says it leaves off the last arg, but actually leaves out $0 (the command name). !* is all of the previous command's arguments.)

Finally, one really useful thing he doesn't mention at all is brace expansion. For example, these are equivalent:

    $ cp foo.conf foo.conf.bak
    $ cp foo.conf{,.bak}

http://www.gnu.org/s/bash/manual/html_node/Brace-Expansion.h...

Great tips. !! is a nice timesaver when you've forgotten to prepend sudo to a command:

  $ /etc/init.d/rabbitmq-server restart
  Failed, need root access
  $ sudo !!
  Success

cd - is also quite cool, it takes you to the previous working directory.

  $ pwd
  /some/really/long/path/goes/here
  $ cd /var/log/app
  Work in this directory for a while, then go to previous dir
  $ cd -
  $ pwd
  /some/really/long/path/goes/here