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Word designators are used to select desired words from the event. A ‘:’ separates the event specification from the word designator. It may be omitted if the word designator begins with a ‘^’, ‘$’, ‘*’, ‘-’, or ‘%’. Words are numbered from the beginning of the line, with the first word being denoted by 0 (zero). Words are inserted into the current line separated by single spaces.
For example,
!!!!:$!$.
!fi:2fi.
Here are the word designators:
0 (zero)0th word. For many applications, this is the command word.
^$%-y*0th. This is a synonym for ‘1-$’.
It is not an error to use ‘*’ if there is just one word in the event;
the empty string is returned in that case.
*-If a word designator is supplied without an event specification, the previous command is used as the event.