Best way to search through shell's history

Question

Is there a better way to search my history file for a command than grep? I do have some idea what the command starts as, but I don't know how far back in the history it is.

update: was formerly zsh specific but due to overlapping answers feel free to answer for any shell (or mode (vi/emacs)) here, just note if it is specific.

score 89 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

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Ctrl+R is usually the best way, as descriptor said. You can also use !string, which runs the most recent command starting with string, or !?string?, which runs the most recent command that contains string.

_{(I think that's the only stuff relevant to this question, but I covered much more of the history commands in this answer)}

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

Community

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answered Aug 16 '10 at 20:45

Michael Mrozek

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how do you make the 'ctrl+r' look like that? – xenoterracide Aug 16 '10 at 21:23
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@xen <kbd>Ctrl+R</kbd>. answer source – Michael Mrozek Aug 16 '10 at 22:01
I didn't realize SE engine accepted any html thanks. – xenoterracide Aug 16 '10 at 22:37
I didn't knew that the kbd keyword would interpret correctly the "ctrl" and "+" ! I used to tag each key separately. thanks! – Olivier Dulac Jul 15 '15 at 00:33
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@OlivierDulac Sadly it doesn't, that's just how I used to format keys; somebody edited my answer later to make them separate keys – Michael Mrozek Jul 15 '15 at 05:16
ah ^^ well, ok, then it is back, in my mind, to a simple (and consistent) type of tagging. – Olivier Dulac Jul 15 '15 at 11:55

score 36 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 01 '12 at 07:53

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When using Bash, type Control-R and then start typing. Typing Control-R repeatedly after inputting some text will move you back in matching command lines.

edited Apr 01 '12 at 07:53

bignose

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answered Sep 15 '10 at 07:31

grendel

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That's only if you know the exact string. Fuzzy search would be helpful here. – Mike S. Apr 18 '22 at 18:33

score 20 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 01 '12 at 07:53

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Not sure if this will help, but I like to use ctrl-r and then start typing the command. It should go through your history and present you with the first match. To toggle through the matches just hit ctrl-r again.

edited Apr 01 '12 at 07:53

bignose

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answered Aug 16 '10 at 19:46

decriptor

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Sorry, forgot about the zsh. You might have to add this keybinding to your ~/.zshrc:
bindkey '^R' history-incremental-search-backward
– decriptor Aug 16 '10 at 19:49

score 18 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 16 '10 at 02:01

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If you add the following to ~/.inputrc

"\e[5~": history-search-backward
"\e[6~": history-search-forward

and restart Bash, you can start typing, and then use Page Up and Page Down to move backward and forward through the history of lines starting with the same prefix you just typed.

(Some may prefer to use \e[A and \e[B, which will replace the normal Up and Down actions instead of binding new keys.)

answered Sep 16 '10 at 02:01

ephemient

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I prefer to map these commands to Alt + Up and Alt + Down. Depending on the keyboard emulation the terminal emulate uses these combinations might be mapped either to \E[A and \E[A (e.g. KDE Konsole with Linux Key Bindings) or \E[1;3A and \E[1;3B (e.g. XFCE Terminal or KDE Konsole with X Free 4 Bindings). – Christian Herenz Sep 22 '19 at 12:19
do you know why some commands may break this in bash? – dashesy Apr 19 '20 at 03:12

score 9 · Answer 5 · edited Apr 01 '12 at 07:53

The interactive prompt invoked by Ctrl-R, which had been already mentioned, is the most convenient way. Additionally it's popular to remap Up and Down arrow keys to search the history for a prefix currently on the command line, however this requires some changes to the ~/.inputrc file.

The classic and less interactive solution is to use shell history expansion. Typing

!foo

will execute the last command that starts with foo and

!?foo

will execute the last command that contains foo. More information about history expansion can be found in the Bash reference manual, assuming your shell is Bash or compatible.

Dennis Williamson · Answer 6 · 2011-04-28T11:22:18.800

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If you add stty -ixon to your ~/.bashrc file then Ctrl-s will go in the opposite direction to Ctrl-r.

edited Apr 28 '11 at 11:22

answered Sep 16 '10 at 01:56

Dennis Williamson

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I wanted to use C-s for this purpose, but my terminal got frozen; beware! (Well, I haven't yet employed any stty ixon, not sure what this is for.) – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev Apr 27 '11 at 12:26
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@imz: C-q will "unfreeze". It and C-s are the usual software flow control characters which were once useful to manually interrupt (pause) the flow of output when slow serial connections were used. Now output is so fast in most cases that what you want to see when you press C-s has already scrolled by. stty -ixon turns off software flow control. – Dennis Williamson Apr 28 '11 at 11:19
Fantastic! I have searched for years for a way to scroll forward in history like this. – marlar Dec 31 '16 at 09:11

score 7 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 04 '12 at 00:29

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned - but you can select vi-mode in bash or ksh by doing this:

set -o vi

...or using this as the contents of ~/.inputrc (for GNU readline used in programs such as bash):

set editing-mode vi

Then after that, you can use Esc to enter command mode and use k to go back in history, and j to go forward. You can also search using / to search normally, and ? to search in reverse.

If you use ~/.inputrc, then this will work not just in GNU bash but in anything that uses GNU readline such as CLISP and possibly programs like the MySQL command shell and like the CPAN shell.

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 15 '10 at 19:04

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If you type !ls then bash will look through your history and execute the most recent command that begins with "ls"

answered Sep 15 '10 at 19:04

Kevin M

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score 3 · Answer 9 · edited Feb 02 '23 at 23:59

To switch forward when using reverse search (with Ctrl+R command) :

Open your .bashrc file :
sudo gedit ~/.bashrc
Add this line (the letter f can be replaced with another not yet used by the system)
```
bind '"\C-f": forward-search-history' 
```
Close your file and update your ~/.bashrc (or open another terminal) with the command:
source ~/.bashrc or . ~/.bashrc

Now you can move forward in the history with the shortcut: Ctrl+F

Working on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

score 3 · Answer 10 · edited Apr 01 '12 at 07:53

3

I use following two most of the time.
But please note both of them search for starting chars.

tcsh: type some few charecters of the command then Esc+p it will show the previous command starting with that key sequence press it again it will show another command.
ksh : use fc -e - <SPACE> <first few char for your previous > this will run last command matching that sequence.

I was not able to find something like Ctrl+R in Bash for my ksh and tcsh.

edited Apr 01 '12 at 07:53

bignose

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answered Aug 17 '10 at 04:48

Hemant

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Ctrl+r works a little differently in ksh than Bash. Press Ctrl+r then type the string you're looking for and press enter. To search for the same thing, press Ctrl+r and enter without having to re-type the string. This is in set -o emacs mode, by the way. – Dennis Williamson Aug 17 '10 at 19:32
@Dennis: +1 :-) – Hemant Aug 18 '10 at 05:18

score 2 · Answer 11 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

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might be zsh specific. In researching this answer I found vi-history-search-backward which allows one to search with / in vi mode (which I didn't mention I was in) you can then use n and N to search forward and backward respectively (after pressing enter).

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

Community

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answered Aug 16 '10 at 21:32

xenoterracide

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score 2 · Answer 12 · edited Feb 02 '23 at 23:55

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I find fzf works better for this task, which supports fuzzy-search your command history. To install fzf, run the following command:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/junegunn/fzf.git ~/.fzf
# say yes to its install prompts
~/.fzf/install

Restart the shell, you should get a far better experience searching your history commands (the shortcut is still Ctrl+R). To navigate the search results, use Ctrl+N and Ctrl+P.

edited Feb 02 '23 at 23:55

Edgar Magallon

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answered Mar 24 '21 at 07:45

jdhao

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Wow, this is much more feature-rich than all the other answers here (with the possible exception of vi-history-search-backward which I didn't try 'cause I'm an emacs guy) – ijoseph Jun 08 '22 at 20:08

score 1 · Answer 13 · edited Apr 01 '12 at 07:53

1

There is a way to use Ctrl-R with tcsh. Add the following in your ~/.cshrc:

bindkey "^r" i-search-back (it is just a caret sign and the letter r)

That's the biggest time saver for me.

edited Apr 01 '12 at 07:53

bignose

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answered Sep 16 '10 at 14:59

score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Jul 14 '15 at 22:00

similar answer to @ephemient, but you can put into your .bashrc

bind '"\e[A": history-search-backward'
bind '"\e[B": history-search-foward'

and type part of the phrase, and then use the up/down arrow to browse the most recent options that match. This is matlab's default behavior.

For most folks, if you want to port your settings to a new system, it is easier to remember to snag just your ~/.bashrc then that that you have to snag that ~/.inputrc

dkagedal · Answer 15 · 2012-02-06T17:15:21.147

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Yes it exists, at least if you are using zsh. Just start typing the command and then press M-p (ESC p) and it will find previous commands that matches what you typed. Press it again to find the next match.

edited Feb 06 '12 at 17:15

answered Sep 15 '10 at 16:53

dkagedal

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This answer can do with more explanations. – phunehehe Feb 06 '12 at 15:43

Best way to search through shell's history

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