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In this lesson, you’ll learn how to list, search, and interactively navigate your Bash command history to boost your command-line productivity.

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1. List Your Bash History

Bash keeps track of every command entered in a session. To display your entire session history, use: 
history
Example output: 
 1  history
 2  ls
 3  ls -la
 4  test
 5  clear
 6  cd
 7  pwd
 8  clear
 9  sudo systemctl reboot
10  ls -la
11  clear

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2. Search Commands with grep

To filter history for specific keywords, pipe the output to grep. For example, to find all sudo invocations: 
history | grep sudo
Output: 
9  sudo systemctl reboot
For comprehensive details on grep, see the GNU grep Manual.

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3. Locate the .bash_history File

Bash writes your commands to ~/.bash_history when you log out. To view hidden files in your home directory: 
ls -la /home/aaron
Sample listing: 
drwx------ 14 aaron aaron  4096 Dec  5 13:52 .
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  root   4096 Dec  5 13:43 ..
-rw-------  1 aaron aaron   112 Dec  5 13:51 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 aaron aaron    18 Nov 24 08:20 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--  1 aaron aaron   141 Nov 24 08:20 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--  1 aaron aaron   492 Nov 24 08:20 .bashrc
...
You can open ~/.bash_history in any text editor or display it with: 
cat ~/.bash_history
Commands executed in your current session only appear in ~/.bash_history after you log out.

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4. Navigate History Interactively

Bash lets you recall and edit past commands right in the prompt. Use these keystrokes:
KeystrokeAction
↑ (Up Arrow)Scroll backward to earlier commands
↓ (Down Arrow)Scroll forward to more recent commands
Ctrl + RReverse search through command history
When you find the desired entry, press Enter to re-execute or edit it inline.

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Additional Resources

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