How to edit a prior command

[Gerry Paul]

... while trying to learn more about csh and shell scripts...


What I would like to do is to edit a previous entry on the history list
and execute it, much as I can on a Symbolics machine.


The closest I am able to do is to make one change to a prior command.
   Eg  history  ...4  echo 'fred'
                   5 ....
   I can do a !4:s/fred/wanda   which executes echo 'wanda'


To "simplify" this, I would like to create a shell command which would
do the same thing so I could enter (the admittedly not much simpler)

   h 4 /fred/wanda      instead of !4:s/fred/wanda  

My unsuccessful attempts look like this
  alias h '!\!^:s\!$'

While I don't think I have the quotes, backquotes, etc right yet, a bigger
problem seems to loom in the evaluation sequence. First I need the
history entry number from the prior command, ie, !^ or 4 in this
example.  Then I need to prepend the ! to get the !4 command...
Can I do this within csh?  Can I use EVAL in this?

Also, is there a more general way to re-edit a prior entry?

Gerry Paul        INTERNET:  gpaul at shamash.cdc.com
                  UUCP:     {rosevax,umn-cs,bungia,ems}!shamash!gpaul
Gerry Paul        INTERNET:  gpaul at shamash.cdc.com
                  UUCP:     {rosevax,umn-cs,bungia,ems}!shamash!gpaul