Search inside ipython history

Question

ipython's %his command outputs recent commands entered by the user. Is it possible to search within these commands? Something like this:

[c for c in %history if c.startswith('plot')] 

EDIT I am not looking for a way to rerun a command, but to locate it in the history list. Of course, sometimes I will want to rerun a command after locating it, either verbatim or with modifications.

EDIT searching with ctr-r and then typing plot gives the most recent command that starts with "plot". It won't list all the commands that start with it. Neither can you search within the middle or the end of the commands

Solution

Expanding PreludeAndFugue's solution here what I was looking for:

[l for l in  _ih if l.startswith('plot')] 

here, the if condition can be substituted by a regex

Answer 1

Even better: %hist -g pattern greps your past history for pattern. You can additionally restrict your search to the current session, or to a particular range of lines. See %hist?

So for @BorisGorelik's question you would have to do

%hist -g plot 

Unfortunately you cannot do

%hist -g ^plot 

nor

%hist -g "^plot" 

Answer 2

If you want to re-run a command in your history, try Ctrl-r and then your search string.