Recalling and labeling previous bash commands

In previous tips Bash Terminal keyboard shortcuts and Handy Bash Shell Aliases, we started mentioning some useful shortcuts and aliases. But did you know about the Ctrl-R shortcut?

Here is how recalling a command works:

While in a terminal window running a Bash shell (the default shell for Shaheen), press Ctrl key and push R (noted Ctrl-R). The line will read (reverse-i-search): followed by the cursor. To find a previous command, type its first letters. As you type, the first matching command shows. For instance, if you search a previous sbatch command, press 's', then 'b', then 'a' till the first command beginning by 'sba' appears.

• If it suits you, press Ctrl-O or hit Return to execute it,
• if you need to modify it, press the right arrow. the (reverse-i-search) prompt  disapears and place you back in normal mode and allow further editing before hiting Return when satisfied,
• If you search a similar one but typed earlier, hit Ctrl-R again and again. You will navigate along all the commands of your Bash history,
• if you change your mind, hit Ctrl-G to exit the current search and go back to an empty Bash prompt.

As smartly pointed in this blog post, you can label your favorite commands and use ctrl-R to find them instantaneously. Here is the trick:

• imagine that you use extensively the following command ' ls /project/kxxxx/DIR1/DIR2/DIR3/Results'...
• Just once, type the following

ls /project/kxxxx/DIR1/DIR2/DIR3/Results #res

• bash will completely ignore #res at the end of the line, as it is a comment... but it will be saved in your command history as is!
• From now on, just hit Ctrl-R (to search previous command) then hit '#', 'r', 'e', 's' to get back to it!

For a comprehensive list of Bash shortcuts check also here