IDG Contributor Network: Unix tips: Saving time by repeating history

Getting work done faster on the command line is one of the never changing goals of Unix sysadmins. And one way to do this is to find easy ways to reuse commands that you have entered previously – particularly if those commands are complex or tricky to remember. Some of the ways we do this include putting the commands in scripts and turning them into aliases. Another way is to reissue commands that you have entered recently by pulling them from your command history and reusing them with or without changes.

The easiest and most intuitive way to reissue commands is by using the up and down arrows on your keyboard to scroll through previously entered commands. How far back you can scroll will depend on the size of your history buffer. Most people set their history buffers to hold something between 100 and 1,000 commands but some go way beyond that. Hitting the up arrow 732 times might try your patience, but there are are fortunately easy ways to get what you need without wearing out your finger tip! To make this post a little easier to follow, I'm using a modest HISTSIZE setting. You can view your current history queue size using the command shown below

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