HISTORY man page on 4.4BSD

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HISTORY(1)							    HISTORY(1)

NAME
       -, --, -p, --p - shell history programs

SYNOPSIS
       - [pattern...]  [substitution...]

DESCRIPTION
       This  set  of programs provides a crude history mechanism for the shell
       rc(1).  It is based on the v8 UNIX programs =, ==, etc.

       The program ``-'' runs the shell on the	command	 it  is	 requested  to
       find.   The  program  ``--''  edits  that  command first.  The programs
       ``-p'' and ``--p'' are similar, except that they print the  final  com‐
       mand on their standard output instead of running the shell.

       The  commands work by looking for a file named by the environment vari‐
       able $history, and by searching for previous  commands  in  this	 file.
       Old  commands  can  be  edited,	or simply re-executed according to the
       rules below:

       A command is searched for by examining the lines in $history in reverse
       order.	Lines  which contain a previous invocation of the history pro‐
       gram itself are ignored.	 If one or more pattern	 is  supplied  on  the
       command	line,  then  the  patterns are used as a means of limiting the
       search.	Patterns match any substring of a  previous  command,  and  if
       more  than  one	pattern	 is  present then all patterns must be matched
       before a command is selected.

       Substitutions may also be specified on the command  line.   These  have
       the syntax:

	    old:new

       (Note  that the old pattern is used as a search-limiting pattern also.)
       Substitutions happen on the first match.

       Finally, a command may be edited in a crude line-mode fashion: The line
       to  be  edited is printed out, and below it the user supplies modifica‐
       tions to the command:

       any character
	      Replaces the character above.

       space or tab
	      Skips over the above character(s).

       #      Deletes one character.

       %      Replaces one character with a space.

       ^      Inserts the rest of the typed line just before the character.

       $      Deletes the rest	of  the	 line  from  that  character  on,  and
	      replaces it with the rest of the typed line.

       +      Appends the rest of the typed line.

       -      Backs up to a previous command satisfying the same matching con‐
	      straints.

       end of file
	      If an end-of-file is read from the keyboard by  the  editor,  it
	      aborts with exit status 1 and does not produce any output.

EXAMPLES
       The  history  programs  work best when their output is reinterpreted by
       the shell using an eval command.	 This can be  achieved	by  writing  a
       shell function to perform the reinterpretation:

	    fn - -- {
		 comm = `{$0^p $*}
		 if (! ~ $#comm 0) {
		      echo $comm >[1=2]
		      eval $comm
		 }
	    }

				 30 July 1991			    HISTORY(1)
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