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history_incremental_search

🔍 Advanced Incremental History Search​

Leverage Readline's incremental search to quickly find previous commands without leaving IRB. By binding Ctrl-R to history_search_backward, you can jump directly to matching entries.

Add this to your ~/.irbrc:

require 'readline'
Readline.define_history_proc { |line| line.strip.empty? ? false : true }
Readline.emacs_editing_mode
Readline::HISTORY.to_a      # inspect history
# Bind Ctrl-R to reverse incremental search
Readline.rl_bind_key("\C-r") { Readline::history_search_backward }

Now within IRB, hit Ctrl-R and type part of a previous command to instantly recall it.