fc man page on SuSE

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   14857 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
SuSE logo
[printable version]

FC(1P)			   POSIX Programmer's Manual			FC(1P)

PROLOG
       This  manual  page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux
       implementation of this interface may differ (consult the	 corresponding
       Linux  manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
       not be implemented on Linux.

NAME
       fc - process the command history list

SYNOPSIS
       fc [-r][-e editor] [first[last]]

       fc -l[-nr] [first[last]]

       fc -s[old=new][first]

DESCRIPTION
       The fc utility shall list, or shall edit and re-execute, commands  pre‐
       viously entered to an interactive sh.

       The  command history list shall reference commands by number. The first
       number in the list is selected arbitrarily. The relationship of a  num‐
       ber to its command shall not change except when the user logs in and no
       other process is accessing the list, at which time the system may reset
       the  numbering  to  start the oldest retained command at another number
       (usually 1). When the number reaches  an	 implementation-defined	 upper
       limit,  which  shall  be no smaller than the value in HISTSIZE or 32767
       (whichever is greater), the shell may wrap the  numbers,	 starting  the
       next  command  with  a  lower number (usually 1). However, despite this
       optional wrapping of  numbers,  fc  shall  maintain  the	 time-ordering
       sequence of the commands. For example, if four commands in sequence are
       given the numbers 32766, 32767, 1 (wrapped), and 2  as  they  are  exe‐
       cuted,  command	32767  is  considered  the command previous to 1, even
       though its number is higher.

       When commands are edited (when the -l option  is	 not  specified),  the
       resulting  lines	 shall	be  entered at the end of the history list and
       then re-executed by sh. The fc command that caused  the	editing	 shall
       not  be entered into the history list. If the editor returns a non-zero
       exit status, this shall suppress the entry into the  history  list  and
       the  command re-execution. Any command line variable assignments or re‐
       direction operators used with fc	 shall	affect	both  the  fc  command
       itself as well as the command that results; for example:

	      fc -s -- -1 2>/dev/null

       reinvokes  the previous command, suppressing standard error for both fc
       and the previous command.

OPTIONS
       The fc  utility	shall  conform	to  the	 Base  Definitions  volume  of
       IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following options shall be supported:

       -e  editor
	      Use  the editor named by editor to edit the commands. The editor
	      string is a utility name, subject to search via the  PATH	 vari‐
	      able  (see  the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,
	      Chapter 8, Environment Variables). The value in the FCEDIT vari‐
	      able  shall  be  used  as a default when -e is not specified. If
	      FCEDIT is null or unset, ed shall be used as the editor.

       -l     (The letter ell.) List the commands rather than invoking an edi‐
	      tor on them. The commands shall be written in the sequence indi‐
	      cated by the first and last operands, as affected	 by  -r,  with
	      each command preceded by the command number.

       -n     Suppress command numbers when listing with -l.

       -r     Reverse  the  order  of  the commands listed (with -l) or edited
	      (with neither -l nor -s).

       -s     Re-execute the command without invoking an editor.

OPERANDS
       The following operands shall be supported:

       first, last
	      Select the commands to list or edit. The number of previous com‐
	      mands  that  can be accessed shall be determined by the value of
	      the HISTSIZE variable. The value of first or last or both	 shall
	      be one of the following:

       [+]number
	      A positive number representing a command number; command numbers
	      can be displayed with the -l option.

       -number
	      A negative decimal number representing the command that was exe‐
	      cuted  number  of	 commands  previously.	For example, -1 is the
	      immediately previous command.

       string
	      A string indicating  the	most  recently	entered	 command  that
	      begins  with  that  string.  If the old= new operand is not also
	      specified with -s, the string form of the first  operand	cannot
	      contain an embedded equal sign.

       When the synopsis form with -s is used:

	       * If first is omitted, the previous command shall be used.

       For the synopsis forms without -s:

	       * If  last  is omitted, last shall default to the previous com‐
		 mand when -l is specified; otherwise,	it  shall  default  to
		 first.

	       * If  first and last are both omitted, the previous 16 commands
		 shall be listed or  the  previous  single  command  shall  be
		 edited (based on the -l option).

	       * If  first and last are both present, all of the commands from
		 first to last shall be edited (without -l)  or	 listed	 (with
		 -l).  Editing multiple commands shall be accomplished by pre‐
		 senting to the editor all of the commands at one  time,  each
		 command  starting  on a new line. If first represents a newer
		 command than last, the commands shall be listed or edited  in
		 reverse  sequence,  equivalent	 to using -r. For example, the
		 following commands on the first line are  equivalent  to  the
		 corresponding commands on the second:

		 fc -r 10 20	fc    30 40
		 fc    20 10	fc -r 40 30

	       * When a range of commands is used, it shall not be an error to
		 specify first or last values that  are	 not  in  the  history
		 list;	fc  shall substitute the value representing the oldest
		 or newest command in the list, as appropriate.	 For  example,
		 if  there are only ten commands in the history list, numbered
		 1 to 10:

		 fc -l
		 fc 1 99

	      shall list and edit, respectively, all ten commands.

       old=new
	      Replace the first occurrence of string old in the commands to be
	      re-executed by the string new.

STDIN
       Not used.

INPUT FILES
       None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of fc:

       FCEDIT This  variable,  when expanded by the shell, shall determine the
	      default value for the -e editor option's editor option-argument.
	      If FCEDIT is null or unset, ed shall be used as the editor.

       HISTFILE
	      Determine a pathname naming a command history file. If the HIST‐
	      FILE variable is not set, the shell may  attempt	to  access  or
	      create  a	 file  .sh_history in the directory referred to by the
	      HOME environment variable. If the shell cannot obtain both  read
	      and  write  access to, or create, the history file, it shall use
	      an unspecified mechanism that  allows  the  history  to  operate
	      properly. (References to history "file" in this section shall be
	      understood to mean this unspecified mechanism in such cases.) An
	      implementation may choose to access this variable only when ini‐
	      tializing the history file; this initialization shall occur when
	      fc  or sh first attempt to retrieve entries from, or add entries
	      to, the file, as the result of commands issued by the user,  the
	      file named by the ENV variable, or implementation-defined system
	      start-up files. In some historical shells, the history  file  is
	      initialized  just after the ENV file has been processed.	There‐
	      fore, it is implementation-defined whether changes made to HIST‐
	      FILE  after the history file has been initialized are effective.
	      Implementations may choose to disable the history list mechanism
	      for  users with appropriate privileges who do not set HISTFILE ;
	      the specific circumstances under which this occurs are implemen‐
	      tation-defined.  If more than one instance of the shell is using
	      the same history file, it is unspecified how updates to the his‐
	      tory  file  from	those  shells interact. As entries are deleted
	      from the history file, they shall be deleted oldest  first.   It
	      is  unspecified when history file entries are physically removed
	      from the history file.

       HISTSIZE
	      Determine a decimal number representing the limit to the	number
	      of  previous  commands  that are accessible. If this variable is
	      unset, an unspecified default greater than or equal to 128 shall
	      be  used.	 The maximum number of commands in the history list is
	      unspecified, but shall be at least 128.  An  implementation  may
	      choose  to  access this variable only when initializing the his‐
	      tory file,  as  described	 under	HISTFILE.   Therefore,	it  is
	      unspecified  whether  changes made to HISTSIZE after the history
	      file has been initialized are effective.

       LANG   Provide a default value for the  internationalization  variables
	      that  are	 unset	or  null.  (See the Base Definitions volume of
	      IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section  8.2,  Internationalization	 Vari‐
	      ables  for the precedence of internationalization variables used
	      to determine the values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values  of  all
	      the other internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE
	      Determine	 the  locale  for  the	interpretation of sequences of
	      bytes of text data as characters (for  example,  single-byte  as
	      opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input files).

       LC_MESSAGES
	      Determine	 the  locale  that should be used to affect the format
	      and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.

       NLSPATH
	      Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of
	      LC_MESSAGES .

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
       Default.

STDOUT
       When the -l option is used to list commands, the format of each command
       in the list shall be as follows:

	      "%d\t%s\n", <line number>, <command>

       If both the -l and -n options are specified, the format of each command
       shall be:

	      "\t%s\n", <command>

       If  the	<command>  consists of more than one line, the lines after the
       first shall be displayed as:

	      "\t%s\n", <continued-command>

STDERR
       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES
       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
       None.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values shall be returned:

	0     Successful completion of the listing.

       >0     An error occurred.

       Otherwise, the exit status shall be that of the	commands  executed  by
       fc.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE
       Since editors sometimes use file descriptors as integral parts of their
       editing, redirecting their file descriptors as part of the  fc  command
       can  produce  unexpected results. For example, if vi is the FCEDIT edi‐
       tor, the command:

	      fc -s | more

       does not work correctly on many systems.

       Users on windowing systems may want to have separate history files  for
       each window by setting HISTFILE as follows:

	      HISTFILE=$HOME/.sh_hist$$

EXAMPLES
       None.

RATIONALE
       This utility is based on the fc built-in of the KornShell.

       An early proposal specified the -e option as [-e editor [ old = new ]],
       which is not historical practice. Historical practice in fc  of	either
       [-e  editor  ]  or  [-e	-  [  old = new ]] is acceptable, but not both
       together.  To clarify this, a new option -s  was	 introduced  replacing
       the  [-e	 -].  This  resolves  the conflict and makes fc conform to the
       Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       HISTFILE
	      Some implementations of the KornShell check  for	the  superuser
	      and  do  not create a history file unless HISTFILE is set.  This
	      is done primarily to avoid creating unlinked files in  the  root
	      file  system  when logging in during single-user mode.  HISTFILE
	      must be set for the superuser to have history.

       HISTSIZE
	      Needed to limit the size of history files. It is the  intent  of
	      the standard developers that when two shells share the same his‐
	      tory file, commands that are  entered  in	 one  shell  shall  be
	      accessible  by  the  other shell. Because of the difficulties of
	      synchronization over a network, the exact nature of the interac‐
	      tion is unspecified.

       The initialization process for the history file can be dependent on the
       system start-up files, in that they may contain	commands  that	effec‐
       tively  preempt	the  settings  the user has for HISTFILE and HISTSIZE.
       For example, function definition commands are recorded in  the  history
       file. If the system administrator includes function definitions in some
       system start-up file called before the ENV file, the  history  file  is
       initialized  before the user can influence its characteristics. In some
       historical shells, the history file is initialized just after  the  ENV
       file has been processed. Because of these situations, the text requires
       the initialization process to be implementation-defined.

       Consideration was given to omitting the fc utility in favor of the com‐
       mand  line editing feature in sh. For example, in vi editing mode, typ‐
       ing "<ESC> v" is equivalent to:

	      EDITOR=vi fc

       However, the fc utility allows the user the flexibility to edit	multi‐
       ple commands simultaneously (such as fc 10 20) and to use editors other
       than those supported by sh for command line editing.

       In the KornShell, the alias r (``re-do") is preset to fc -e -  (equiva‐
       lent  to	 the  POSIX fc -s). This is probably an easier command name to
       remember than fc (``fix command"), but it does  not  meet  the  Utility
       Syntax  Guidelines.  Renaming  fc  to  hist or redo was considered, but
       since this description closely matches  historical  KornShell  practice
       already, such a renaming was seen as gratuitous. Users are free to cre‐
       ate aliases whenever odd historical names such as fc, awk,  cat,	 grep,
       or yacc are standardized by POSIX.

       Command numbers have no ordering effects; they are like serial numbers.
       The -r option and -number operand address the sequence of command  exe‐
       cution,	regardless  of serial numbers. So, for example, if the command
       number wrapped back to 1 at some arbitrary point,  there	 would	be  no
       ambiguity  associated  with  traversing the wrap point. For example, if
       the command history were:

	      32766: echo 1
	      32767: echo 2
	      1: echo 3

       the number -2 refers to command 32767 because it is the second previous
       command, regardless of serial number.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.

SEE ALSO
       sh

COPYRIGHT
       Portions	 of  this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
       from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
       --  Portable  Operating	System	Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
       Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003	by  the	 Institute  of
       Electrical  and	Electronics  Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the
       event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
       The  Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
       is the referee document. The original Standard can be  obtained	online
       at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

IEEE/The Open Group		     2003				FC(1P)
[top]

List of man pages available for SuSE

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net