How often do you take a step back and ask yourself if you are doing things the most efficiently? I am in a terminal a large part of my day; running tests, editing in Vim, running git commands, checking files, etc. Over the years I’ve built up shortcuts and workflows to keep me fast and focused on what I need done. But I still have lots to learn and sometimes it takes getting really annoyed with a repitious action before we finally realize there might be the a better way.
The other day I discovered CTRL+W and CTRL+U for the first time. CTRL+W
deletes the last word in the prompt. CTRL+U will clear the current line.
Some other tips and tricks I have found helpful.
-
Use
TABto autocomplete commands/files etc. -
Use
CTRL+Rto search previously entered commands. -
You can repeat the last command you typed with
!!, this is useful if you forgetsudo, i.e.apt-get updatecan be re-run withsudo !!. -
Want just the last arg you entered? Use
!$. A good example of this typingls ~/Documents/folderand then wanting to change to that directory. You can do this withcd $!.
Am I missing any good shortcuts? This is your reminder to keep learning and evaluating your tools.