Ctrl-r = reverse history search. Type a partial command after Ctrl-r and it'll find the most recent executed command with that substring in it.
Press Ctrl-r again, jump to the next oldest command containing your substring. Did you accidentally press too many Ctrl-r? Press backspace to move forward in history.
find . -name "*.png" -print0 | xargs -0 -P8 pngquant --ext .png --force 256 #optimizepng
(if you’re using zsh, you have to enable INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS option first; just run set -k)
Adding a comment there is a neat trick. It also works with bang searches (!?), almost like creating a temporary ad-hoc alias:
find . -name "*.png" -print0 | xargs -0 -P8 pngquant --ext .png --force 256 #optimizepng
... many other commands, time passes ...
!?optimizepngIf earlier I had a long command like `mvn clean test && mvn deploy -P release`, I can just type `mvn v` and press up on the arrows. zsh will present only history entries that start with what I've typed. Insanely useful!
## arrow up
"\e[A":history-search-backward
## arrow down
"\e[B":history-search-forward
(in .inputrc)
Backspace normally just deletes the last character in your incremental search string.
And be sure that C-s / C-q aren't set up for terminal flow control with something like:
stty start undef stop undef