Agreed, but even nicer than control-r are the readline functions `history-search-backward` and `history-search-forward`.

Personally I bind them to up/down which on OS X at least involves:

  # Put this in some file like ~/.readline-bindings
  "\e[A": history-search-backward
  "\e[B": history-search-forward

  # And this in your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc
  bind -f ~/.readline-bindings

That way if you haven't typed any input it behaves like normal up (previous command), but if you've typed some characters it only retrieves matching commands.

http://codeinthehole.com/writing/the-most-important-command-...

Just curious since I don't use a mac, doesn't writing the mappings to .inputrc work? IIRC, putting your readline bindings there makes it available for all readline enabled prompts, not just bash ie: Python, pgsql, mysql,.. Etc

Yes I think that's a better approach, thanks. I don't know why I started using `bind` in my shell config.

Mapping these to Up/Down arrows (instead of PgUp-PdDn) is the best idea EVER !!!

Is there a way to make this work with `set -o vi`? So I can use j/k to browse the history this way?

>Granted, I use zsh, but I think it works pretty much the same in bash.

I also use zsh and I don't even use ctrl+r anymore. I just type a portion of the command I remember and hit the up arrow key. Almost always the command I want is only one to three arrow keys away. zsh matches partial commands really well.

Bash has similar commands available to move up and down by matching commands. However, I find such modal behavior of up/down confusing; I prefer to have up and down always move by one command, and use C-r for reverse isearch.

Agreed, but this only works if you know you are right about the beginning of the command. Ctrl-R is still the best way I know to search for a command that I may not be sure about the first letters of.

I like the incremental searching that using control-r lets you do. That can come in really handy when I don't remember precisely what the command I want is.

I can start typing and then type more once I see some results to hone in more precisely to what I want, or even backspace over some of what I've typed and type some more without having to start all over again.

Also, using control-r instead of the arrow keys doesn't force me to move my wrists and lets me keep my fingers mostly on the home row. I try to use the arrow keys as little as possible.

Not moving your hand away from the home row is a good point!

Now I gotta retrain my muscle memory :)

You should be able to use ctrl-p/n for arrow up/down. That keeps your hand on the homerow. Forget about arrow keys (especially on a typical mac keyboard).

Ctrl-p/n are a quicker way to go up and down the history.

An interesting "extension" of C-r with zsh is to add pattern search:

bindkey '^r' history-incremental-pattern-search-backward

When you remember parts of the commands, you can do "C-r" then "echo*something".

fzf [0] works pretty well for this.

[0] https://github.com/junegunn/fzf

Is there any way to force the installer to compile from source rather than downloading a binary?

I'm a little wary of precompiled binaries.

There's a Makefile in the src directory, seems like you can run "make release" to compile from source.

Do you also validate the whole source code, including running it through static analysis, before compiling it?

Agreed. I guess everything is subjective, but when I read the article state:

> While the [ctrl-r] method is more powerful, when doing some redundant task, it’s much easier to remember !22 than it is to muck with ctrl-r type searches or even the arrow keys.

how?!

> When this keystroke is hit, it appends the last argument of the previous command to the end of the current line

There's `Meta-_` to insert the previous last word, but you cannot cycle with the previous words--it inserts the last word of the previous commands. You can give it a count, though (with Meta+nums).