Fuck Micro$oft Mac terminal

mac terminal bash hotkey

Shortcuts to move faster in Bash command line

Jan 4, 2012

Nowadays, I spend more time in Bash shell, typing longer commands. One of my new year resolutions for this year is to stop using left/right arrow keys to move around in the command line. I learned a few shortcuts a while ago.

Last night, I spent some time to read about “Command Line Editing” in the bash manual. The bash manual is a well-written piece of documentation. I think I should read it more often.

Well, here’s the new shortcuts I learned:
Basic moves

    Move back one character. Ctrl + b
    Move forward one character. Ctrl + f
    Delete current character. Ctrl + d
    Delete previous character. Backspace
    Undo. Ctrl + -

Moving faster

    Move to the start of line. Ctrl + a
    Move to the end of line. Ctrl + e
    Move forward a word. Meta + f (a word contains alphabets and digits, no symbols)
    Move backward a word. Meta + b
    Clear the screen. Ctrl + l

What is Meta? Meta is your Alt key, normally. For Mac OSX user, you need to enable it yourself. Open Terminal > Preferences > Settings > Keyboard, and enable Use option as meta key. Meta key, by convention, is used for operations on word.
Cut and paste (‘Kill and yank’ for old schoolers)

    Cut from cursor to the end of line. Ctrl + k
    Cut from cursor to the end of word. Meta + d
    Cut from cursor to the start of word. Meta + Backspace
    Cut from cursor to previous whitespace. Ctrl + w
    Paste the last cut text. Ctrl + y
    Loop through and paste previously cut text. Meta + y (use it after Ctrl + y)
    Loop through and paste the last argument of previous commands. Meta + .

Search the command history

    Search as you type. Ctrl + r and type the search term; Repeat Ctrl + r to loop through results.
    Search the last remembered search term. Ctrl + r twice.
    End the search at current history entry. Ctrl + j
    Cancel the search and restore original line. Ctrl + g

Need more?

    A comprehensive bash editing mode cheatsheet by Peteris Krumin (catonmat.net).
    Vim users! Do you know you can switch to Vi-style editing mode? Here: vi-style cheatsheet.
    Bash command line editing is actually handled by GNU Readline Library. So just dive into Readline manual for everything else.