How do you recall your most used commands?

PenguinCoder@beehaw.org to Operating Systems@beehaw.org – 20 points –

For example, things you do often but not often enough to make a muscle memory? On Linux systems with Bash, I just use bash aliases. If I do it more than once, It gets an alias or a script; cause I won't remember next time. Example of my current desktop aliases :

alias fuck='sudo $(history -p \!\!)'
alias hstat='curl -o /dev/null --silent --head --write-out '\''%{http_code}\n'\'''
alias ls='ls -la --color=auto'
alias pwgen='< /dev/urandom tr -dc "_A-Z-a-z-0-9\#\+=\$" | head -c${1:-15};echo;'
alias rsync='rsync -ah --info=progress2'

And in my bashrc I have the following settings and functions which come in handy when heads down in the terminal:

# append to the history file, don't overwrite it
shopt -s histappend

# for setting history length see HISTSIZE and HISTFILESIZE in bash(1)
HISTSIZE=1000
HISTFILESIZE=2000
HISTTIMEFORMAT="%Y-%m-%d %T "

####
function stopwatch() {
    local BEGIN=$(date +%s)
    echo Starting Stopwatch...

    while true; do
        local NOW=$(date +%s)
        local DIFF=$(($NOW - $BEGIN))
        local MINS=$(($DIFF / 60))
        local SECS=$(($DIFF % 60))
        local HOURS=$(($DIFF / 3600))
        local DAYS=$(($DIFF / 86400))

        printf "\r%3d Days, %02d:%02d:%02d" $DAYS $HOURS $MINS $SECS
        sleep 0.5
    done
}

function md() {
  pandoc "$1" | lynx -stdin;
}

function weather() {
  ( IFS=+; curl wttr.in/$(curl -s http://ipwho.is/ | jq .postal););
}

So what do you do to remember or recall your most used commands?

20

Up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up

CTRL+R to search previous commands can help cut down on the number of times you have to scroll up!

I'm using Fish, rather than Bash, and it has type-ahead suggestions, which help a lot.

So, I'll type rsync and then it'll show inline that I typed rsync -ah --info=progress2 a long time ago. And then I'll be like, oh wow, this past-me-guy was very smart, I'll be having the same.

Obviously, this is an imperfect system. If you run another rsync command without these flags, it won't directly show these flags next time, because it's not the most recent entry in history.
But it's rare that I know I'll want to run a command again in a few months, so it's still really helpful.
And of course, there is nothing stopping me from creating aliases and scripts as well.

I use nushell, same thing with the suggestions. With nushell, you can also press up/down to traverse through the command history for commands starting with what you typed. For example, you could type ls and press up a bunch to go through ls | where size > 2kb, ls | where type == 'directory', etc (if you've executed those before).

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What does your fuck alias do?

And for my answer: If it’s for a specific tool, I make a helper script. I have one for git and docker

Reruns the last command with sudo (root) cause I fuck up not remembering to sudo quite often.

$ ncdu -rLx /
Warning: error scanning 
some directory sizes may not be correct


$ fuck                                                                                                                                                                                                     
sudo ncdu -rLx /                                                                                         
[sudo] password for

Not the OP and not an expert, but it looks like it redoes the last command with sudo. Would be very useful since I use sudo !! quite often.

Oh, nice! I thought sudo !! was short enough 😆

I agree. But I love the fact that it was aliased to fuck. I just use stuff like up for updating or in installing. Haven't gotten creative with them yet.

I make a bash script for the whole process and document everything in Zim Wiki. I would only make an alias if I want to supply options to an existing command. Just how I do it.

Yeah I have actual notes and processes in my personal wiki too. I don't like having to look up that one command that I only ever rarely use, like the I need to know if this webpage is serving a 200 or not... what did I do last time??

I don't do much with bash since I primarily do windows admin, but I run into the same issue with powershell.

I have a document in VSCode that I store frequently used commands and any kind of notation/documentation I need to take advantage of it in the future. It's a lot of one or two liners for stuff I know I'm going to forget, like the once a month hyperv cluster update command 😂.

Similarly I've added functions to the powershell local and global profiles on my computer/group policy. (contextually similar to bashrc, bash_profile, that load when launching interactive or non interactive shells, as well as user context) That way i can easily execute repeptive commands without having to think!

Basically, I think we all have the same problem and we've forgotten more than we know lol

Me:

  • write it in a StackOverflow answer
  • or in a markdown notebook
  • keep it in zsh history search

but despite all my attempts of keeping records, whenever I need them,

  • ask ChatGPT

I usually lean on fish autocomplete to remember things for me. Should I write stuff down? Yes. But I'm lazy, so this method is okay. Until I'm on a different machine and end up completely lost.

fish FTW! Write a fragment of the command used before and press the up key <3

I didn't even know about arrowing up for partially-entered commands; I've just been relying on the first autocomplete that pops up. Thanks for that!

+1 for Zim Wiki. Write down all the process, document with concise high level explanations and keywords, then use the search function.

I also add a settings file to all my bashrc:

https://gist.github.com/jarfil/da3a5a45bf10e1803d18

It's a mix of some aliases from across several distros, some from as far back as 4DOS and a part for Cygwin, a somewhat complex prompt colorizer that highlights remote/local and root/user shells, and some other stuff that's piled up over the years.