fc (Unix)

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fc is a standard program on Unix and Unix-like operating systems that lists, edits and reexecutes commands previously entered to an interactive shell. fc is a builtin command in the Bash and Zsh shells and is an initialism for "fix command". It is particularly helpful for editing complex, multi-line commands. The editor can be specified by setting the EDITOR (changes the default editor) or the FCEDIT environment variable.

Flag -l used to list previous command history, with example showing command ls as item 1001 in the user's history.

$ fc -l
1001 ls

Flag -s with this index would then recall the history command from 1001:

$ fc -s 1001
ls

Though more powerfully, -s enables inline substitution.

$ ls floder # user typo

$ fc -s ^floder^folder^ # Command revised and runs with correction
ls folder

Most powerfully, executing fc on its own edits the last command executed. Editor can be specified on command line (-e) or via environment variable FCEDIT. User is thus able to fully modify the last command executed via the editor, upon exiting will execute the resultant command.^[1]

$ fc # Change 'ls' to 'ls -la' in editor and exit
ls -la

• List of Unix commands
• Solaris manual page for fc command

• fc: process the command history list – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 4 from The Open Group

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