The
!!
history substitution gives a copy of the
previous command.
Most people use it to re-execute the previous command line.
Sometimes I want to repeat a cycle of two commands, one after the other.
To do that, I just type
!-2
(second-previous command) over and over:
%
vi plot
...
%
vtroff -w plot
...
%
!-2
vi plot
...
%
!-2
vtroff -w plot
...
You can cycle through three commands with
!-3
, four commands
with
!-4
, and so on.
The best part is that if you can count, you never have to remember what to do next.
:-)