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30.6. Using !$ for Safety with Wildcards
We all know about using ls before a wildcarded rm to make sure that we're only deleting what we want. But that doesn't really solve the problem: you can type ls a* and then mistakenly type rm s* with bad consequences -- it's just a minor slip of your finger. But what will always work is:
% ls a* a1 a2 a3 % rm !$
(ls -d a* (Section 8.5) will make less output if any subdirectory names match the wildcard.)
Using the history mechanism to grab the previous command's arguments is a good way to prevent mistakes.
-- ML
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| 30.5. My Favorite Is ^^ |  | 30.7. History by Number |
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