124

One of my favorite Unix tricks is ^x^y, which will take the last command and replace the first instance of "x" with "y". However, I'm wondering if a similar trick works to replace all instances of "x" with "y" in the last command?

slm
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Mason
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    The feature is called history expansion. Looks like we use the `command-history` tag for that. Added. Also, I assume you're referring to the `bash` shell? – Mikel Feb 24 '14 at 03:06

3 Answers3

137

You can use the !!:gs/search/replace/ notation to do what you want. This utilizes the global search & replace (:gs):

before

$ echo "harm warm swarm barm"
harm warm swarm barm

after

$ !!:gs/arm/orn/
echo "horn worn sworn born"
horn worn sworn born

References

Community
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slm
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    @slm this command is replacing just the first instance for me . `[subhrcho@slc04lyo pcbpel]$ echo "hat that bat" hat that bat [subhrcho@slc04lyo pcbpel]$ !!:gs/at/xx/ echo "hxx that bat" hxx that bat`. What am I missing? – Geek Feb 24 '14 at 06:35
  • @Geek - what's your distro? Are you using Bash? Version? `bash --version` = 4.2.45(1)-release. – slm Feb 24 '14 at 06:39
  • @slm GNU bash, version 3.2.25(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc. – Geek Feb 24 '14 at 06:40
  • @Geek - too old a version, doesn't offer this feature. – slm Feb 24 '14 at 06:41
64

I don't believe there's an easy way to add something to ^string1^string2 to make bash replace every occurrence. As slm points out, you have to write !!:gs/string1/string1.

But in zsh, you can just add :G:

$ echo foo foo
foo foo
$ ^foo^bar^:G
echo bar bar
bar bar

In both bash and zsh, you can also use fc -s like this:

$ echo foo foo
foo foo
$ fc -s foo=bar
echo bar bar
bar bar

This is often made into an alias called r so you can just do:

$ echo foo foo
foo foo
$ r foo=bar
echo bar bar
bar bar
Mikel
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5

I believe that the best option is to use ":&"

$ echo "dog cat dog"
$ ^dog^cat^:&
echo "cat cat cat"
cat cat cat

But like Stéphane Chazelas commented below, this replaces just 2 occurrences. If you have more, you'd need to add more :&

Arthur Accioly
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    That replaces **2** occurrences, not *all* of them (well all in this example as there are only 2 occurrence, but not in the general case). You'd need to add as many `:&` as there are more occurrences to replace. – Stéphane Chazelas Apr 30 '19 at 17:14
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    What is the `:&` operator? :thinking: – Lajos May 11 '21 at 19:45