Ubuntu – Find and replace while typing command

bashcommand line

I have typed out a long command in the BASH but just as I typed the command I see that I have misspelled the command or argument. I want the cursor to go to the argument or command I have misspelled using inplace search instead of hitting arrow keys to go to the particular command or argument.

E.g.

ls *.txt | grep -e 'foo' >> list_of_text_files_containing_foo.txt

and I want to change foo in grep to bar by find and replace foo to bar inside the command without hitting arrow keys. Is there a way to change all occurrences of foo to bar.

Best Answer

You probably are interested about bash quick substitution in the last command:

!!:gs/old/new

Example:

$ ls *.txt | grep -e 'foo' >> list_of_text_files_containing_foo.txt
$ !!:gs/foo/bar
ls *.txt | grep -e 'bar' >> list_of_text_files_containing_bar.txt

For more info about bash substitution, read man bash starting from somewhere from the line 3630.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Replace string in bash script

-i can only be used with sed if you're passing a file, it means "inline replace". Without this, the output of sed would be written to stdout (usually the console output). With -i, it does an inline replacement, that is, doing replacements in the file itself.

The next code reads the contents of jasperreports.properties into the variable $input (line 1) and finds the string to be replaced (line 2).
On the third line, it outputs the input string and pipes it through sed for replacement. sed outputs the string to stdout which will be caught by $( and ), and therefore be stored in $input.

read input < jasperreports.properties
find=$(grep "$jasper" jasperreports.properties | awk -F"reports/" '{print $2}')
input=$(echo "$input" | sed "s/$find/charts/")

If you want to apply the changes immediately to the file:

find=$(grep "$jasper" jasperreports.properties | awk -F"reports/" '{print $2}')
sed "s/$find/charts/" -i jasperreports.properties

From man sed:

   s/regexp/replacement/
          Attempt   to   match  regexp  against  the  pattern  space.   If
          successful, replace that portion matched with replacement.   The
          replacement may contain the special character & to refer to that
          portion of the pattern space  which  matched,  and  the  special
          escapes  \1  through  \9  to refer to the corresponding matching
          sub-expressions in the regexp.

Ubuntu – Replacing some characters in the previous command

One character or more can be replaced with zero, one or more characters as follow:

$ some-wrong-long-command
$ ^wrong^correct^
some-correct-long-command

This quick substitution repeat the last command-line from terminal, replacing wrong string with correct string.

Examles:

enter image description here

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – Replace string in bash script

Ubuntu – Replacing some characters in the previous command

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