Re: Switching from tcsh to bash as an interactive shell

From: P.T. Breuer (ptb_at_oboe.it.uc3m.es)
Date: 09/16/04 

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 22:14:56 GMT

Ed L Cashin <ecashin@coraid.com> wrote:
> Tristan Miller <psychonaut@nothingisreal.com> writes:

> ...
> > Anyone care to clue me in as to some of the neato features bash has over
> > tcsh for command-line use?

> Yes, I have surprised several long-time bash users with a favorite
> trick: If you hit control-r, you get to interactively search the
> command-line history.

But isn't that what tcsh does? I search backwards all the time with
esc-p in tcsh. AFAIR, bash was particularly late in copying that feature of
tcsh (which is even a csh feature, where I think tab did the trick).

> > Any time-saving tricks or shortcuts I might otherwise overlook from
> > ten years of tcsh blinders?

Personally, I have never been able to make out how bash history
searching is supposed to work. The UI always leaves me confused and
helpless. Bits of command appear and disappear, and I don't know if one
is supposed to type or hit metakeys.

> I rarely have to do a "cd" because I use the history as above and the

So do tcsh users. Bash copied it.

> keystrokes that allow fast editing of the commandline. I guess you
> could do that in tcsh, but the control-r thing is what makes it
> practical for me.

You'll have to explain one more time how it works in bash to me. I warn
you that people have been trying to explain to me how bash's way of going
through the history is almost as good as tcsh's for years, and I always
have never got it and/or immediately forgotten it. In tcsh, it's easy -
you type a bit of a command, then hit esc-p to go up the history list
to the last command that started like that. Repeat until satisfied.

Peter

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