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What are the most used commands in your shell history?

Abhinav Kumar on July 04, 2018

Recently I came across a thread on reddit which asked users the most used command in their shell history. My results: 1 419 13.0489% ...

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Dian Fay • Jul 5 '18

 1 179 17.9179% git 2 88 8.80881% ls 3 86 8.60861% cd 4 79 7.90791% rm 5 74 7.40741% cat 6 57 5.70571% vi 7 44 4.4044% pacman 8 37 3.7037% mocha 9 28 2.8028% sudo 10 25 2.5025% tree

Outside the usual suspects, pacman is the Arch Linux package manager and mocha is a JavaScript test framework. I'm actually a little surprised the latter made the top 10.

rhymes • Jul 5 '18

for a moment I thought you had a version of Pacman installed in the terminal

Dian Fay • Jul 5 '18

I mean, it exists, but I was never any good at Pacman :D

rhymes • Jul 5 '18

ahhahaha me neither.

I'm more of a Space Invaders person.

Valentin Baca • Jul 5 '18

No surprise here. git, cd, ls, vim, build, search

 1 3663 36.6337% g 2 938 9.38094% cd 3 534 5.34053% igs # inall git status (runs 'git status' in each dir in pwd) 4 516 5.16052% .. 5 277 2.77028% vim # <3 6 258 2.58026% ls 7 216 2.16022% <redacted> # company build command, aliased to be 2 letters :) 8 200 2.0002% ws # alias to cd to my workspace dir 9 175 1.75018% <redacted> # company workspace information command, aliased to be 2 letters 10 167 1.67017% ag # the silver searcher > (grep or awk or find)

Abhinav Kumar • Jul 9 '18 • Edited

You might want to look into autojump or autojump-rs to quickly jump to your workspace directories.

Also, ripgrep is a competent (not drop-in though) alternative to ag/grep.

Valentin Baca • Jul 9 '18

Thanks. I've found that autojump and the like are too non-determistic to be reliable.

ripgrep is missing two very critical features: -G (--file-search-regex) and the ability to grep gzip'd files. The ripgrep vim plugin is also sub-par to ag's.

ripgrep is certainly faster, but they're both so fast their difference is often in ms.

simo • Jul 5 '18

 1 301 30.1% g 2 162 16.2% cd 3 105 10.5% ll 4 87 8.7% npm 5 43 4.3% s 6 32 3.2% sudo 7 30 3% rm 8 20 2% node 9 19 1.9% mocha 10 17 1.7% nvm

g - git, s - sublime

Abhinav Kumar • Jul 9 '18

Are you using self-defined aliases for git or the ones defined by a bash/zsh framework?

simo • Jul 9 '18

I've manually added the following lines in my .bashrc file:

# git alias and autocomplete alias g='git' source /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/git complete -o default -o nospace -F _git g

Igor Moura • Jul 6 '18

 1 997 12.7023% exit 2 992 12.6386% git 3 916 11.6703% sudo 4 295 3.75844% ping 5 266 3.38897% cd 6 261 3.32526% yaourt 7 212 2.70098% ls 8 138 1.75819% startx 9 126 1.6053% cat 10 110 1.40145% qemu-system-x86_64

I honestly didn't expect qemu to be there lol

rhymes • Jul 4 '18

 1 355 35.5355% git 2 106 10.6106% yarn 3 48 4.8048% pipenv 4 28 2.8028% brew 5 26 2.6026% rm 6 25 2.5025% zgrep 7 25 2.5025% cd 8 22 2.2022% curl 9 19 1.9019% pyenv 10 18 1.8018% redis-cli

Abhinav Kumar • Jul 4 '18

How is pipenv working out for you? Is it comparable to yarn or cargo in your experience?

rhymes • Jul 4 '18 • Edited

I use pyenv (to have multiple Python versions installed) and pipenv a lot.

I don't know about cargo but pipenv is not that different from yarn. It has a file with the list of dependencies and a lock file. It tends to consume less resources than yarn because Python dependencies trees are usually much smaller than those of JS libraries.

Noah Cain • May 16 '19

 1 43 17.0635% cd 2 37 14.6825% flutter 3 31 12.3016% ls 4 27 10.7143% git 5 22 8.73016% webdev 6 14 5.55556% nano 7 11 4.36508% sudo 8 10 3.96825% adb 9 8 3.1746% pub 10 7 2.77778% rm

Flutter, am I right?

Vlastimil Pospichal • Jul 16 '18

 1 117 12.4468% ll 2 113 12.0213% xmllint 3 92 9.78723% vim 4 45 4.78723% php 5 39 4.14894% cd 6 36 3.82979% mv 7 34 3.61702% git 8 28 2.97872% cat 9 27 2.87234% docker 10 24 2.55319% mongo

Andy Zhao (he/him) • Jul 5 '18

 1 137 27.4% git 2 50 10% cd 3 47 9.4% ls 4 43 8.6% brew 5 26 5.2% br (bin/rails) 6 24 4.8% brg (bin/rails guard) 7 13 2.6% heroku 8 12 2.4% pg_upgrade 9 12 2.4% pg_restore 10 11 2.2% rm

Surprised that brew,pg_upgrade, and pg_restore are there. Wonder if it take your most recent commands from the previous week.

Thomas H Jones II • Jul 5 '18

Probably depends on how your shell history is set up. Things like whether concurrent sessions are set up to aggregate history, whether session's shell-history is configured to save to disk at all, how large you've set your HISTSIZE, etc. will all play in.

Fynn • Jul 5 '18

 1 378 6.77784% ga (git add .) 2 358 6.41922% gc (git commit -m) 3 346 6.20405% gulp 4 319 5.71992% ls 5 292 5.23579% gpll (git pull && echo ' --pulled -- ' && git push && echo ' --pushed -- ') 6 232 4.15994% gs (git status) 7 202 3.62202% npm 8 182 3.2634% .. 9 178 3.19168% git 10 156 2.7972% gpl (git pull)

Shreyas Minocha • Jul 5 '18

 1 1179 11.77% git 2 1119 11.171% cd 3 556 5.55056% npm 4 537 5.36089% ls 5 439 4.38255% gstt 6 362 3.61386% rm 7 311 3.10472% mv 8 242 2.41589% sudo 9 242 2.41589% cat 10 216 2.15633% brew

Where gstt is my alias for git status

Antoine B. • Jul 5 '18

 1 350 32.3475% sudo 2 214 19.7782% git 3 89 8.22551% cd 4 62 5.73013% docker 5 41 3.78928% rm 6 25 2.31054% docker-compose 7 19 1.75601% mkdir 8 18 1.66359% chmod 9 15 1.38632% vim 10 15 1.38632% tar

sudo won this

Til • Jul 5 '18

if the terminal is your IDE:

1 2749 14.3633% vim 2 2414 12.613% git 3 1808 9.44668% ll 4 1392 7.27311% curl 5 1154 6.02957% cd 6 1127 5.8885% node 7 469 2.45049% npm 8 262 1.36893% cat 9 245 1.28011% rm 10 232 1.21218% docker

MN Mark • Jul 6 '18

 1 169 33.8% ssh 2 58 11.6% git 3 45 9% cd 4 44 8.8% ll 5 26 5.2% vim 6 23 4.6% dig 7 22 4.4% exit 8 17 3.4% vi 9 15 3% clear 10 8 1.6% ping

I might be a software engineer by title, but really a sysadmin by necessity.
I didn't expect to see exit and clear so much but I suppose it makes sense with all the tmux panes being created and destroyed and my habit of clearing the screen when switching between tasks.

Abhinav Kumar • Jul 9 '18

Ctrl+D and Ctrl+L?

tsia • Jul 10 '18

 1 1073 10.73% sudo 2 852 8.52% cd 3 795 7.95% ssh 4 522 5.22% dig 5 455 4.55% curl 6 412 4.12% vi 7 368 3.68% git 8 304 3.04% rm 9 283 2.83% ls 10 249 2.49% cat

I'm more of a sysadmin guy as you might have guessed by git being only on 7 :D

leojpod • Oct 28 '19

 1 536 20.727% gcam 2 312 12.065% gco 3 124 4.79505% npm 4 124 4.79505% gc 5 121 4.67904% ga 6 111 4.29234% git 7 105 4.06032% elm 8 97 3.75097% rm 9 75 2.90023% docker-compose 10 54 2.08817% g

aka a bunch of git shortcuts, the infamouse npm for npm start on all my projects, yet more git stuff
number 11 is nvim with 51 :D

Nicolò Rebughini • May 16 '19

On my main VM lots of DNS queries, talking to other machines and inline loops; and oh, some heavy ansible testing made its way to the top 10

 1 192 19.2% dig 2 153 15.3% ssh 3 107 10.7% cd 4 104 10.4% sudo 5 52 5.2% rm 6 50 5% for 7 46 4.6% split 8 44 4.4% scp 9 39 3.9% ansible-playbook 10 20 2% ll

Vernet Loïc • Jul 6 '18

Git also wins for me. :) php would be second when combining php and sf.

 1 393 23.632% git 2 128 7.69693% cd 3 120 7.21587% sf 4 75 4.50992% php 5 54 3.24714% rm 6 54 3.24714% kf.preprod3 7 52 3.12688% grep 8 49 2.94648% redis-cli 9 46 2.76609% composer 10 42 2.52556% ping

sf is an alias for php app/console
kf.preprod3 is a ssh alias

Thomas H Jones II • Jul 5 '18 • Edited

Depending on your distribution, the "only X number of lines of history are printed" is the default behavior. For bash and ksh, subbing fc -l 1 for history usually suffices.

Edvin Dunaway • May 16 '19 • Edited

 1 274 27.4% ssh 2 118 11.8% ping 3 56 5.6% ls 4 55 5.5% vim 5 52 5.2% cd 6 47 4.7% cat 7 46 4.6% sudo 8 38 3.8% grep 9 31 3.1% find 10 24 2.4% gf 11 21 2.1% ll 12 21 2.1% less 13 16 1.6% gp 14 15 1.5% rm 15 15 1.5% la 16 15 1.5% dnfd 17 11 1.1% git 18 10 1% cpp 19 9 0.9% diff 20 8 0.8% chmod

I mainly work via ssh, so my total commands differ there.