Re: refering to 2nd from last history parameter?

[ZyX <kp-pav@xxxxxxxxx>]

22.01.2015, 16:42, "Axel Beckert" <abe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Hi,
>
> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 12:18:19PM +0000, zzapper wrote:
>>  I don't think it's possible
>>
>>  ls !$    last parameter of previous command
>>
>>  echo a b c d e f g h
>>
>>  I don't think I can grab 'g' without counting left to right
>
> Interesting question.
>
> I would have expected that using negativ numbers would work (with
> CSH_JUNKIE_HISTORY enabled of course):
>
>   % echo !:-2
>
> But this actually seems an abbreviation for
>
>   % echo !:0-2
>
> despite this is not documented in the man page. (I may come up with a
> documentation patch for that later.)

It is documented:“x-y    A range of words; x *defaults to 0*.”

>
> It though seems consistent with tcsh which behaves the same way.
>
> Despite I never thought about it so far, I'd use such a feature if I
> knew it exists. Would come in handy with many rsync/scp/cp/etc.
> command-lines to reuse the source argument if there were a bunch of
> dashed options before it.
>
> I wonder what would be a good syntax for such a feature as "-n"
> seems already taken. Maybe something "<n" as in e.g.
>
>   % echo !:<2
>
> (And would we count from 0 or from 1, i.e. would "!:<0" or "!:<1" be a
> synonym for "!:$"? :-)

I would say that `!:<1` resulting in a second word counted from the end is rather unexpected.

>
>                 Kind regards, Axel
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