I only recently started integrating Ctrl+R into my command-line workflow, and I am happy I did! The command, called reverse-i-search, starts an autocomplete within one's history and eliminates most of my up, up, up, up, up behavior.
From a UX perspective, Ctrl+R works perfectly for me. It's already part of my muscle memory on a few key commands I run a lot. It works by searching through your recent .bash_history. Once you see the command you are looking for, you can press return to execute it or use the left and right arrow buttons to modify it. If you are not seeing the command you want, or can't quite remember the params you need, you can keep hitting Ctrl+R to cycle through the results. It's a very natural flow.
If you're still addicted to up, up, up, up, up, I hope you try this command for yourself.
Latest comments (34)
Do Try McFly
REF: github.com/cantino/mcfly
Waouw didn't know about that! Thx Ben!
This is what I use, really enjoy it. Still "autocompletes", but you don't have to move from the arrow keys
Thats awesome! Going to use that. Ohmyzsh does some interesting things too, but definitely my pattern is still a few too many up arrow keys :)
This is surely a life saver for me. Just tried it. And it works!!!! :)
Another upside is that this works with all applications that use libreadline. I just used this to bring up a complex SQL query from my ~/.mysql_history, and it also does the job for Python 3.x.
In zsh, I bound ctrl-R to history-incremental-pattern-search-backward, which allow wild cards in the search string. It's even more useful.
try ohmyz.sh/ !!
I loved it _
See also Hashtags for commands, wherein you add a
#somethingmemorableafter a complicated command, making it easier to Ctrl+R for it in future.