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bash expansion

History

From https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/194406/how-to-access-the-second-argument-from-the-last-command-in-the-history:

You can use <M-.> (or <Esc>. if your Meta key is being used for something else), that is, Meta-dot (or Esc-dot), where Meta is usually the Alt key, to recall the last argument of the previous command. So, first you would type

grep foo /usr/share/dict/american-english

And then if you wanted to grep for something else, you would type

grep bar

After typing a space and then Esc. (that is, first pressing the escape key, and then the period key):

grep bar /usr/share/dict/american-english

You can also use either of the following:

grep bar !:2
grep bar !$

Where !:2 and !$ mean “second argument” and “last argument” respectively.