Bash has some useful short­cuts that most of users are unaware of. Here I’m describ­ing some of them that I found very very useful:

  1. Screen clear: are you tired of typing clear all the times you want to get your screen cleared? Hint: press ctrl + L.
  2. Reverse search: sometimes could happen that you have to retype some command you previously typed. So why don’t look for the command in the history? Press ctrl + R and begin typing the command. Bash should autocomplete it!
  3. Command substitution: if you wrote your command and you typed a wrong letter, why to rewrite all the command? Just substitute the mistaken word. How? Use ^texttosobstitute^sobstitution. For example, if you typed apt-get updatke, you can fix it by typing as next command ^updatke^update (or simpler: ^tk^t).
  4. Latest action: do you want to repeat the last command? Just use !!. It will (re)execute the latest command you given.
  5. Latest parameter: and if you want to use once again the latest parameter you typed in the last command? !$ is made for you… For example, let suppose you renamed film.avi in my_new_divx.avi with mv film.avi my_new_divx.avi. If you want to see it you can just type mplayer !$. That’s all (and there’s !* that refers to all the argument passed in the previous command…).

I use these short­cuts from the time I’ve dis­cov­ered them and I found them very useful (espe­cially the number 1!). So, why don’t share such things with the other guy over here?