this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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Programmer Humor

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'm not a programmer but I do this on the Linux command line all the time to find a command I used days or weeks ago. Or I'll spend 20 minutes grepping history instead. All to avoid spending 5 minutes reading the manpage so I can remember which flags and arguments I used.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Perhaps pressing [Ctrl]+[R] and typing to search makes it easier, I mean instead of grepping history?
Most terminal emulators support it.

You can also change your query (backspacing and typing again) and press [Ctrl]+[R] multiple times to go to older matches.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I will have to try that, I didn't know that functionality existed, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Let me tell you that you can also add comments to your terminal commands and use them to search history using fzf. This might sound confusing but basically you do this:

commandwithweirdoptions --option1=value1 --option2=value2 # run the usual thing

Then you press Ctrl+R and type anything like «the thing», it uses fuzzy matching and finds the command in history, with a menu of other similar commands. Press enter, done.

Note that you need to have fzf installed, otherwise there is no fuzzy matching and no menu of matching history results.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Seems to work with [Ctrl]+[R] as well, though of course only with exact matches.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sure, just as I said, this would work id you don't need menu or fuzzy matching. But I would recommend using fzf history search anyway, it's just too good.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

M-hm, I will try it as well! I was just letting people know the comment trick works regardless, cause that's a nice tip as well!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I've never understood prompt decoration like this.

How.
Does.
Punctuating.
Every.
Statement.
Increase.
Readability.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

You meant the PS1 prompt?

I just use one of the default oh-my-zsh themes that makes a clear line, so I can easily find the last line above a long output, for example when trying to read it back chronologically. With other PS1's I often scroll over it without noticing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

It makes my eyes bleed.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

This looks super neat but I don't really like the idea of sending my shell history to a third party, nor can I host my own server right now.
Wish it was peer-to-peer like Syncthing

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I don’t either, but you don’t have to use that feature. I don’t. I just use with local db for that machine.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

And then you realise your dumb endless ls-ing has pushed the command off the history list

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

This is too accurate!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Can you change the history list size?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Can you configure it to ignore ls and cd ..

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (4 children)

May i introduce u to atuin

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think you mean Crtl+R in bash

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What does this sometimes appear not to work for me even though the command is clearly in the history?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Ooh that's even cooler!

Not MySQL, though, but nice for usage in a terminal!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Nah thanks, up arrow hasnt failed me yet

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't believe in A'tuin. The world is obviously carried on the back of a badger.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

And the honey badger mauls. My planet could beat up your planet in a fight.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Have you used fish? The built-in fuzzy matching works pretty well for me. Wondering if there's any reason to add atuin in. Sync seems like a negative to me more than a positive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Yeah they are compatible. Sync can be disabled entirely or self hosted.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I use fish with atuin but without sync. It is nice because I can search commands for a given workspace. For example the commands within a given git repository.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

*tap*
no
*tap*
no
*tap*
no

Okay, NOW it's getting personal!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

me typing “sudo !!” instead of rewriting the shell command undoes this.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Who is writing SQL in the terminal?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

MariaDB CLI about once in a blue moon when I have to clear some table that's gotten borked.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Was thinking the same thing... now, searching through all my SQL scripts for the past year to find the same logic I want to replicate in another script, well that's different.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I save "template" SQL queries in a special directory so that I don't have to google how to do specific things. It's basically my own personal "examples" folder.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Me in the bash terminal