Re: [Help-bash] Help-bash Digest, Vol 52, Issue 7

[J.B.]

> > What I'd like to do instead is use history commands to quickly replace
> > the long file path/name with a different one.
> >
> > What I've more recently tended to do is Ctrl-P, Ctrl-X Ctrl-E (or `fc
> > -e vim' if $EDITOR is set to emacs or nano) and edit the command line
> > using vim's efficient editing commands. But I'd really just like a way
> > to tell bash, "replace that long string that matches '!?really/lon?:%'
> > with 'some/other/file'." (plus, vim's filename completion is way too
> > slow (^X^F)).
> >
> > But the closest I can get is `!:s/"type the entire file name"/"type the
> > new file name"', which is a real drag.
> >
> > Something else that is a bit more useful is to specify the file name
> > first (with a redirect), which shortens the distance the cursor has to
> > move: < path/to/file tailf -n 1 [etc ....]
> >
> > But that assumes I don't just mindlessly bang away at the keyboard,
> > which is a bad assumption. (I'd be in so much trouble if bash didn't
> > accept flags/options scattered throughout the command line).
> > ls /path/to/a/file -Fd /and/another/file/here -lt
> Perhaps someone else knows what bash means by "Event specification" with
> respect to the section on "Word designators" in bash's man page. I can't
> figure it out for the life of me.
>
> I though of another way that's shorter then ^Fa^Fb^.
> export file="/some/long/path/to/file.txt"
> tailf $file
> export file="/new/long/path/to/file.txt"
>
> Alternatively, if the file names remain the same across runs they can be
> permanent variables.
>
> Sincerely, David
I think 'event specification' refers to the event designator minus the 
arguments, ie, it's synonymous with 'event designator'- "A : separates 
the event specification from the word designator."

`echo foo bar doo'
`!:2' -- '2' is the word designator; '!' is the event designator or 
event specifier.

I like your idea of assigning the filename to a variable, too.

> what i often do with something like this is ^P, ^R, type the shortest 
> thing i can think of in half a second that will get me near the end of 
> the text i need to replace (in your example that might be " | " or 
> "logfile" or something), ^F (or ^B, etc.) to get out of 
> reverse-i-search and position the cursor exactly, ^U to kill to head, 
> and then re-enter the short initial command ("tailf -n1 ") and the 
> long filename 
> another way to restructure your command to make the path easier to 
> replace could be to use process substitution to force it to the *end* 
> of the line, making the replace sequence "^P^R<space>^K<space><new 
> filename>)": 
> grep -iw "some\|neat\|things\|to\|grep" <(tailf -n1 
> /some/really/long/path/to/a/logfile)
> --
> Aaron Davies

I think that's probably close to what I'll more often do: I'll type out my command 
line and pipes, then Ctrl-A, </path/to/file.
And to edit the log file's name, I'll just Ctrl-A, Alt-D to erase the entire 
file.

Thank you both for your suggestions.