Command history
Command history is a feature in many operating system shells, computer algebra programs, and other software that allows the user to recall, edit and rerun previous commands.
Command line history was added to Unix in Bill Joy's C shell of 1978; Joy took inspiration from an earlier implementation in Interlisp. It quickly became popular because it made the C shell fast and easy to use. History has since become a standard feature in other shells, including ksh, bash and Microsoft's cmd.exe. History addressed two important scenarios:
Executing the same command or a short sequence of commands over and over. An example might be a developer frequently compiling and running a program.
Correcting mistakes or rerunning a command with only a small modification.
In Joy's original C shell, the user could refer to a previous command by typing an exclamation, !
, followed by additional characters to specify a particular command, only certain words, or to edit it in some way before pasting it back into the command line. For example: