fc Command in Linux with Examples (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 22 Mar, 2024

As we all know that LINUX is command friendly and while working on LINUX, you may deal with very long commands that may include long paths or really difficult syntax, and imagine what if working with such commands you do a minor mistake which will require re-writing of the entire command synopsis and its arguments in order to execute it again successfully. Now, there are two solutions to this - either re-write the entire syntax or simply use

**fc

command that allows you to

**edit

and

**re-execute

the commands previously entered to a shell without re-writing them again. This command line utility really comes to help while editing long commands. So, the

**fc

command is used to list, edit or re-execute the commands previously entered into an interactive shell. Here's the syntax of fc command :

//syntax of fc command

**fc [-e ename] [-lnr] [first] [last]
or
**fc -s [pat=rep] [command]

where the

**-lnr

refers to the options available for

**fc

and

**-e ename

refers to the editor you want to use for editing.

**first

and

**last

here is for specifying the range .

Using fc command

To easily understand the use of fc command and how does it work let's take a simple example where you want to change your working directory to

**kt/kartik/thakral

and by mistake while changing your directory you write

**karik

instead of

**kartik

, in this case you can simply use

**fc command

to edit the previously entered path. After you enter the incorrect directory path you'll see something like this :

then you can just simply type

**fc

command and after writing fc command your editor will open up so that you can now edit the previously entered command like shown below :

IMG_20180114_142658

after editing your path you can exit your editor and after exiting

**fc

command will

**re-execute

the

**cd kt/kartik/thakral

like shown below :

Using fc command with options

Applications of fc command