Question

Is there a way to run a regexp-string replace on the current line in the bash?

I find myself rather often in the situation, where I have typed a long commandline and then realize, that I would like to change a word somewhere in the line.

My current approach is to finish the line, press Ctrl+A (to get to the start of the line), insert a # (to comment out the line), press enter and then use the ^oldword^newword syntax (^oldword^newword executes the previous command after substituting oldword by newword).

But there has to be a better (faster) way to achieve this. (The mouse is not possible, since I am in an ssh-sessions most of the time).

Probably there is some emacs-like key-command for this, that I don’t know about.

Edit: I have tried using vi-mode. Something strange happened. Although I am a loving vim-user, I had serious trouble using my beloved bash. All those finger-movements, that have been burned into my subconscious suddenly stopped working. I quickly returned to emacs-mode and considered, giving emacs a try as my favorite editor (although I guess, the same thing might happen again).

Answer 1

Unfortunately, no, there’s not really a better way. If you’re just tired of making the keystrokes, you can use macros to trim them down. Add the following to your ~/.inputrc:

'\C-x6': '\C-a#\C-m^' '\C-x7': '\C-m\C-P\C-a\C-d\C-m' 

Now, in a new bash instance (or after reloading .inputrc in your current shell by pressing C-x C-r), you can do the following:

1. Type a bogus command (e.g., ls abcxyz).
2. Press Ctrl-x, then 6. The macro inserts a # at the beginning of the line, executes the commented line, and types your first ^.
3. Type your correction (e.g., xyz^def).
4. Press Ctrl-x, then 7. The macro completes your substitution, then goes up to the previous (commented) line, removes the comment character, and executes it again.

It’s not exactly elegant, but I think it’s the best you’re going to get with readline.