want shell should I learn 16

On 2006-01-06, Peter T. Breuer

No, the command line is itself an editor. It is more limited than a full editor, but it is a trade-off for speed of editing and executing a script.

If I wanted an editor, it certainly wouldn't be vi.

Yes, one can, but the editor is the command line itself, using the readline library.

I've never used (or felt the need for) fc. Calling up an editor to edit the command line is a waste of time.

Part of the reason for using the command line is that I have multiple versions of the script a couple of keystrokes away, all easily and quickly modifiable.

What do you want it to do?

It is an excellent command-line editor; that's what we are talking about.

If I want a full editor, I use emacs (or whatever; when I started shell scripting, I used WordPerfect).

Set the HISTFILE variable; the commands will be saved when you exit the shell.

If you want the commands saved immediately after they are executed, set the PROMPTCOMAMND variable to save them:

PROMPTCOMMAND="history -a"

The speed of the box is irrelevant.

It's about fingers, not machine instructions.

At the command line, I invoke the commands by pressing ENTER; there is no equally quick way of doing it (as flexibly) in an editor.

Programming in bash (or other Bourne-type shell) IS the discussion. Where have you been?

That's may have been its origin, but csh syntax is not much like C.

Besides, you claim you do not want a programming language at the command line.

I understand the individual words; it's the aggregate that doesn't make any sense in the context.

-- Shell Scripting Recipes: My code in this post, if any, A Problem-Solution Approach is released under the 2005, Apress GNU General Public Licence