Adrián Bíro

Readline Key Bindings

Moving

command	description
ctrl + a	Goto BEGINNING of command line
ctrl + e	Goto END of command line
ctrl + b	move back one character
ctrl + f	move forward one character
alt + f	move cursor FORWARD one word
alt + b	move cursor BACK one word
ctrl + xx	Toggle between the start of line and current cursor position
ctrl + ] + x	Where x is any character, moves the cursor forward to the next occurance of x
alt + ctrl + ] + x	Where x is any character, moves the cursor backwards to the previous occurance of x

Edit / Other

command	description
ctrl + d	Delete the character under the cursor
ctrl + h	Delete the previous character before cursor
ctrl + u	Clear all / cut BEFORE cursor
ctrl + k	Clear all / cut AFTER cursor
ctrl + w	delete the word BEFORE the cursor
alt + d	delete the word FROM the cursor
ctrl + y	paste (if you used a previous command to delete)
ctrl + i	command completion like Tab
ctrl + l	Clear the screen (same as clear command)
ctrl + c	kill whatever is running
ctrl + d	Exit shell (same as exit command when cursor line is empty)
ctrl + z	Place current process in background
ctrl + _	Undo
ctrl + x ctrl + u	Undo the last changes. ctrl+ _ does the same
ctrl + t	Swap the last two characters before the cursor
esc + t	Swap last two words before the cursor
alt + t	swap current word with previous
esc + .
esc + _
alt + [Backspace]	delete PREVIOUS word
alt + <	Move to the first line in the history
alt + >	Move to the end of the input history, i.e., the line currently being entered
alt + ?	display the file/folder names in the current path as help
alt + *	print all the file/folder names in the current path as parameter
alt + .	print the LAST ARGUMENT (ie “vim file1.txt file2.txt” will yield “file2.txt”)
alt + c	capitalize the first character to end of word starting at cursor (whole word if cursor is at the beginning of word)
alt + u	make uppercase from cursor to end of word
alt + l	make lowercase from cursor to end of word
alt + n
alt + p	Non-incremental reverse search of history.
alt + r	Undo all changes to the line
alt + ctl + e	Expand command line.
~[TAB][TAB]	List all users
$[TAB][TAB]	List all system variables
@[TAB][TAB]	List all entries in your /etc/hosts file
[TAB]	Auto complete
cd -	change to PREVIOUS working directory

History

command	description
ctrl + r	Search backward starting at the current line and moving ‘up’ through the history as necessary
crtl + s	Search forward starting at the current line and moving ‘down’ through the history as necessary
ctrl + p	Fetch the previous command from the history list, moving back in the list (same as up arrow)
ctrl + n	Fetch the next command from the history list, moving forward in the list (same as down arrow)
ctrl + o	Execute the command found via Ctrl+r or Ctrl+s
ctrl + g	Escape from history searching mode
!!	Run PREVIOUS command (ie sudo !!)
!vi	Run PREVIOUS command that BEGINS with vi
!vi:p	Print previously run command that BEGINS with vi
!n	Execute nth command in history
!$	Last argument of last command
!^	First argument of last command
^abc^xyz	Replace first occurance of abc with xyz in last command and execute it

References

1. http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/readline.html
2. https://github.com/fliptheweb/bash-shortcuts-cheat-sheet/blob/master/README.md