How can I recall the argument of the previous bash command?

Question

Is there a way in Bash to recall the argument of the previous command?

I usually do vi file.c followed by gcc file.c.

Is there a way in Bash to recall the argument of the previous command?

Answer 1

You can use $_ or !$ to recall the last argument of the previous command.

Also Alt + . can be used to recall the last argument of any of the previous commands.

Answer 2

If the previous command had two arguments, like this

ls a.txt b.txt

and you wanted the first one, you could type

!:1

giving

a.txt

Or if you wanted both, you could type

!:1-2

giving

a.txt b.txt

You can extend this to any number of arguments, eg:

!:10-12

Answer 3

!!:n where n is the 0-based position of the argument you want.

For example:

echo 'one' 'two'
# "one two"

echo !!:2
# "two"

The ! prefix is used to access previous commands.

Other useful commands:

• !$ - last argument from previous command
• !^ - first argument (after the program/built-in/script) from previous command
• !* - all arguments from previous command
• !! - previous command (often pronounced "bang bang")
• !n - command number n from history
• !pattern - most recent command matching pattern
• !!:s/find/replace - last command, substitute find with replace

Answer 4

In the command-line, you can press alt+. or esc-.

It cycles through the last argument of your previous commands.

Answer 5

If you know the number given in the history for a particular command, you can pretty much take any argument in that command using following terms.

Use following to take the second argument from the third command in the history,

!3:2

Use following to take the third argument from the fifth last command in the history,

!-5:3

Using a minus sign, you ask it to traverse from the last command of the history.

Answer 6

!* runs a new command with all previous arguments.

ls /tmp
cd !*
#you are now in /tmp

Answer 7

Yes, you can use !$ to recall the last argument of the preceding command.

Answer 8

There are two different ways to recall command history:

• Bash history expansion, in which a sequence of characters you input is expanded into part of your command history when you run the command (most other examples in answers to this question are in this category)
  • Documentation: man bash, search for HISTORY EXPANSION.
• Readline commands, in which a sequence of keystrokes you input causes part of your command history to be inserted into the current command before you run it.
  • Documentation: man bash, search for Readline Command Names, Commands for Manipulating the History and Numeric Arguments.

Readline Commands

If we have previously run the following commands:

echo A B C
echo D E F

Use these methods to insert the following arguments into your current command for example:

• F: Alt + . (inserts the last argument of the previous command)
• C: Alt + . , Alt + . (cycles through last arguments of earlier commands)
• E: Alt + 2 , Alt + . (specify the second argument 2, before inserting from last command)
• B: Alt + 2 , Alt + . , Alt + . (As above, cycles through earlier commands)
  • The numeric argument before Alt+. can get you any single argument from any previous command
  • Argument numbers start from 0 (echo in our examples)
  • Argument numbers can have multiple digits
  • Argument numbers can be negative, in which case the count backward from the last argument in the command
  • Note that Alt + digit may be assigned to a keyboard shortcut to select a tab in your shell GUI, which will prevent these combinations being passed to Bash.
• A: Alt + Ctrl + y, This is a special case; it inserts the “first” argument (ie. the second string in the command) of the last command and does not then cycle through earlier commands.