Ever have a very long shell command that when you run you realize has a mistake right in the middle? Ctrl-A will take you to the beginning and Ctrl-E will take you to the end, but what if you’d really like to search and replace a word, or delete a chunk, VIM would be perfect for such a task. Well, this tip is for you.
Here is a somewhat long command you can test with:
for i in `cat file | grep -P ^value[0-9] | awk -F: '{print$2}'`; do ssh $i "ps aux | grep value"; done
Let’s say that I want to change the print$2 to print$3. Doing this using the cursor I would have to move sequentially across the command and stop in the right place, then delete or backspace and type the new charactor. With this tip, I can type Ctrl-X, Ctrl-E and bash will load my default editor (which is VIM, right? ^1) and in it you’ll see your long command. Use “f2″ to move to the 2 and then “r3″ to replace it, then write and quit using “ZZ” or “:wq” and VIM will exit and then bash will execute the newly edited command.
Thanks to Justin Burke for showing me this one!
^1. put this is your ~/.bashrc file “export EDITOR=vim”
If you use bash you should try the builtin command “fc” (stands for “fix command”) just do that and it’s very easy to remember.
great site.
Rich, What a great tip! “fc” is my new favorite way to do this.
Thanks!
Ah, another note… when you’re editing the command line in vim and you decide you don’t want to execute the command line you can exit with :cq instead of :wq (or ZZ). Doing so will be the same as pressing ^C in bash to cancel the command.
If you want the full vim experience you should be using ‘set -o vi’ in bash. That changes the command line editing mode to use vi-like bindings (i to enter insert mode, ESC to get out). In normal mode, pushing ‘v’ will start up EDITOR.
Bartman, thanks for the comments. I am still learning to love vi mode in bash. It breaks using CTRL-A and CTRL-E to get to the start and end of the line and that really bugs me. That’s what I like about this tip, I can keep bash the way I like it, and still be only two key strokes away from editing the command. The extra key stroke is worth it to me.