Is there a way to match history entries on multiple words/tokens of the command, when performing history expansion?

Question

I'm working with a command-line tool that provides a number of subcommands that all use the same binary, e.g. tool foo, tool bar, etc, and as I work, these commands are placed into my Bash shell history, for example:

 7322  [2021-04-16 15:37:45 +0000] tool foo .
 7323  [2021-04-16 15:37:47 +0000] tool bar
 7324  [2021-04-16 15:37:50 +0000] tool baz
 7325  [2021-04-16 15:38:01 +0000] tool qux -a -b asdf -c=100 /var/lib/foo/...
 7326  [2021-04-16 15:38:15 +0000] htop
 7327  [2021-04-16 15:38:21 +0000] tool foo . -x

The exact tool is proprietary (its exact functionality is irrelevant) and doesn't have specific features to help with tracking and recalling its own commands.

For example, I'd like to recall command 7325, tool qux -a -b asdf -c=100 /var/lib/foo/... (suppose that it's not recent enough to just hit the up arrow a bunch of times). The commands and parameters vary often enough that establishing a Bash alias doesn't seem practical or convenient (either I edit .bashrc or I lose the alias when the shell closes). I'm pretty confident that the last time I ran tool qux, it had the correct parameters that I would want to use, or a reasonably safe set that I would need to edit anyway.

I know I could run history | grep qux to look for the history index and then run !7325. Is there a way I can directly recall it with one set of keystrokes typed into the Bash prompt? !tool qux doesn't work because in this scenario it will run tool foo . -x qux instead. I tried quoting it, but it looks like expansion happens earlier.

Answer 1

You can use bash's "reverse interactive search", usually accessible via Ctrl+R. That key combination will bring up this prompt:

 (reverse-i-search)`': 

There, you can start writing the command and it will autocomplete from your history, with the most recent first. However, it matches the entire string you enter, so tool q will immediately bring back tool qux -a -b asdf -c=100 /var/lib/foo/.... That should do what you want.

From man bash:

       reverse-search-history (C-r)
              Search backward starting at the current line  and  moving  `up'
              through  the  history  as  necessary.   This  is an incremental
              search.