Control History Expansion, Quick Substitution, and Tokenization

$histchars contains up to three characters:

1. history expansion character: Defines the start of a history expansion. Default value: !.
2. quick substitution character: The character, which starts a substitution, when it’s first on a line. Default value: ^.
3. end-of-line comment character (optional): The character, where an end-of-line comment begins. Default value: #

Links

• Bash manual
• Bash manual on Event Designators

Live Templates

Examples

Quick substitution to print hello world :

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echo hello
# here comes the quick substitution 
# to replace "hello" of the previous 
# command with "hello world" and run it 
^hello^hello\ world^

Now use a custom substitution character :

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histchars='!@'
echo hello
@hello@hello\ world@