Bash has a bunch of features that are (somewhat) undocumented but are extremely powerful. There are magic variables, shortcuts and shorthands that can help you improve your shell-fu. This post is a compilation of some of the best features Bash has to offer (many of which apply to zsh as well).

Shortcuts

• Ctrl E: Move cursor to the end of the current command.
• Ctrl A: Move cursor to the beginning of the current command.
• Ctrl U: Delete to beginning of command from current cursor position.
• Ctrl K: Delete to end of command from current cursor position.
• Ctrl R: Reverse search history
• Ctrl X Ctrl-E: Open the current command in $EDITOR (very useful for long commands).
• Ctrl -: Incremental undo
• Ctrl L: Clear screen to the top (same thing as clear command)

Shorthands and Magic variables

• !!: The last command
• !$: The last argument from the last command.
• ![word]: The last command starting with [word]
• ![word]:p: Print the last command starting with [word] (but do not run)
• ^[word]^[replacement]: Find last command starting with [word] and re-run it with [replacement].
• [command] [argument]{a,b,c}: Run [command] with [argument] three times, each time changing the postfix to a, then b, then c. For example, mkdir test{1,2} would make two directories: test1 and test2
• set -o vi: Use vi-like movement to edit commands :)

PS1 Variables for Prompt Customization

• \t: Time (HH:MM:SS)
• \d: Date (Weekday Month Day)
• \w: pwd
• \W: basename of pwd
• \u: username
• \h: hostname