One Thing Well

Two ways to correct mistakes at the command line:

Let’s say you accidentally try to cd into a directory called stoat that doesn’t exist, then remember it’s the weasel directory you’re after:

$ cd ~/stoat
cd: no such file or directory: stoat
$ !!s/stoat/weasel/
$ pwd
/home/you/weasel

What if you type the wrong command by accident, or change your mind about the best command to use? ^ to the rescue:

$ less ~/weasel.txt
# Less shows the file, but it needs to be edited, so...
$ ^less^vim
# ...and the original argument is passed to the new command.