A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy.

Re:A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy. by hnlmorg on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @05:24AM (#49269745)

I’ve been burnt before using ! and forgetting what command I typed previously, thus invoking the wrong command line.

!! is handy for the sudo example, but beyond that, I tend to prefer pressing the up arrow to cycle through the history rather than picking the first item. Eg:

  !ssh

  ssh[up]

It’s the same number of key strokes but less error prone

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Re:A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy. by refp on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @06:07AM (#49270046)

Worth noting that `ssh[up]` isn't available by default in bash nor zsh — though it wouldn't surprise me if helpers such as oh-my-zsh enables it for you. `ssh[up]` is certainly an awesome feature — though (perhaps sadly) not default behavior.

> I've been burnt before using ! and forgetting what command I typed previously

If you want to make sure you do not execute commands you did not intend to, the section linked below is a great start:

- https://refp.se/articles/your-shell-and-the-lazy-exclamation...

You may also look into `magic-space` which makes the expansion of event-designators happen inline, I thought about including it but the article felt long even without it.

Thanks for reading the article, I hope it was a worthwhile read even with alternate workflows elsewhere!

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Re:A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy. by hnlmorg on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @06:41AM (#49270313)

Thanks for the tips. These days I don’t use sh derivatives as my primary shell and the shell I do use has a few features to make command search more ergonomic and safer. But these are useful tips nonetheless

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Re:A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy. by CoastalCoder on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @05:38AM (#49269832)

Agreed. I especially cringed at the author's example of mixing that with "sudo".

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Re:A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy. by pcblues on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @07:12AM (#49270610)

That's mixing human memory with root access. Worse than AI :) I have lost more to mistakes than bugs over 30 years.

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Re:A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy. by refp on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @05:42AM (#49269860)

the "mixing of sudo"-example is using `!!`, which as explained is the immediately previous command, a little confused how that translates to the "execute command somewhere in the history" argument?

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Re:A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy. by CoastalCoder on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @06:34AM (#49270272)

I suppose it depends on the kinds of mistakes to which one is prone.

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Re:A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy. by pwdisswordfishq on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @06:07AM (#49270049)

    bind space:magic-space

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Re:A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy. by mkl on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @08:38AM (#49271454)

Or alt-^ to do it without any configuration.

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