48
votes
Accepted
What's the difference between .bashrc and .inputrc
Settings that are in the .inputrc file affect all programs that use the GNU readline library, not just bash. Think of the .inputrc file as being a configuration file for GNU Readline similar to how ....
- 1,683
10
votes
Accepted
.inputrc vs .bashrc settings
From the bash manual:
history-size (unset)
Set the maximum number of history entries saved in the history
list. If set to zero, any existing history entries are deleted
...
- 356k
9
votes
Accepted
What Popular Programs Use GNU Readline?
This isn’t an exhaustive list, and I haven’t tried to determine popularity: Abiword, Amanda, Atari800, Bacula, Bareos, GNU bc, BlueZ, Cdecl, ConnMan, Freeciv, FreeRADIUS, GNU ftp, NetKit ftp, FVWM, ...
- 481k
8
votes
Complete list of options for .inputrc / readline
You may want to check the bind Bash builtin command.
Use help bind to see the different options.
In particular, you could check the output of
bind -l : List names of functions.
bind -p : List ...
- 3,926
8
votes
Accepted
How to map alt backspace to some command in .inputrc?
For keys that normally send a single character, Alt+key normally sends the escape character followed by this character. In particular, Alt+Backspace sends \e\177 where \e is the escape character (...
7
votes
Briefly jump to matching parentheses in Bash
The question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47358440/blink-matching-paren-not-working-in-readline-prompt lists as part of the question the readline setting
set blink-matching-paren on
which I ...
- 71
5
votes
Accepted
How do I tell readline to use an updated .inputrc?
You can use readline's re-read-init-file command, which is typically accessed theough C-x C-r (that's a Control-X, followed by a separate Control-R), if you use the "emacs" keybindings, which are the ...
- 22.6k
5
votes
Accepted
Use environment variable in .inputrc keybinding
User meuh's tip to use shell-expand-line led me to this solution which puts the environment variable's value on the command line:
$if mode=vi
# Keymaps when we are in insert mode
set keymap vi-...
- 8,819
4
votes
unbind default key from inputrc
Binding to the nop will suppress the key action, but won't help in case you want to free up the key to be a prefix. Suppose you want to dedicate "M-c" as a prefix to a set of related macros, for ...
- 789
4
votes
Accepted
Bash's "set -o vi" vs readline's own options?
The two are identical.
Doing set -o vi in an interactive bash shell calls the set builtin. The C code for the set builtin calls rl_variable_bind("editing-mode", option_name) (where option_name will ...
- 356k
4
votes
Accepted
inputrc not working in ubuntu 18 as it used to in 16 and below
My guess is that the key bindings need a backslash "\". But I can't tell if that's all you need. I'm on Debian.
"\e[A": history-search-backward
"\e[B": history-search-forward
"\e[C": forward-char
"\e[...
- 26.3k
4
votes
Can I make the clear command behave like Ctrl-L in Bash?
clear is a terminal command, excerpt of man clear:
DESCRIPTION
clear clears your screen if this is possible, including its scrollback buffer (if the extended “E3” capability is defined). clear ...
- 12.8k
3
votes
Accepted
How do I remap Control-w in Bash?
The readline library (which is what inputrc configures) sets up bindings corresponding to the bindings of the terminal driver for cooked input. These are commonly known as stty keys because they can ...
3
votes
Where is actually documented, that "\e" stands for the Alt key in .inputrc
You should find that \e is the escape character (meaning there's only one of them, character code 27, often written ESC) rather than an escape character (meaning one of several).
I think in this ...
- 128k
3
votes
Call functions from bashrc in inputrc
The form key: function only accepts readline built-in functions. As you found out, to enter text you need what it called a macro which has to be in quotes: key: "my macro\r". I don't see why you need ...
- 54.7k
3
votes
Accepted
Readline keymapping C-/ not working
The readline library follows the model of a physical terminal that could only transmit ASCII control characters and ANSI escape sequences. C-/ is not an ASCII control character; the ASCII control ...
- 13.7k
3
votes
Accepted
How do you set the colour of the bash tab completion when `colored-completion-prefix` is turned on?
$LS_COLORS is usually defined in ~/.bashrc using the dircolors command and a dir_colors file.
I could not find any information on what entry is used by the colored-completion-prefix readline setting ...
- 1,265
3
votes
Map Alt-c to Ctrl-u
You should use bind to bind a key to a readline function. bind -p lists all the current bindings, and should include:
"\C-u": unix-line-discard
so if you want to call that same function, ...
- 54.7k
2
votes
Execute a readline function without keybinding?
One case where it would make a lot of sense is to "overload" default keystrokes when the line is empty, since many bindings are otherwise meaningless in that case, so lots of the most ...
- 41
2
votes
Bind C-i and TAB keys to different commands in terminal applications via .inputrc
To add to Gilles's excellent answer, in the urxvt terminal emulator the key map can be configured through .Xresources as well: For instance, I added the following line to that file in order to ...
- 290
2
votes
unbind default key from inputrc
I had to unbind using the following. The elusive important piece for me was adding the surrounding single quotes.
FWIW, numerous variations work when running the command directly in the shell. But ...
2
votes
Accepted
Why is my readline / .inputrc configuration being ignored?
TL;DR:
Put comments on separate lines to configuration.
A comment at the end of a line causes readline to silently ignore the whole line if the line would otherwise be valid.
The manual does say:
...
- 33.3k
2
votes
Use environment variable in .inputrc keybinding
Inserting the literal string $USER rather than the expanded value of the USER variable may not make a big difference, as the variable is likely defined with the proper value (assuming a Linux system) ...
- 356k
2
votes
Accepted
Non recursive .inputrc macros
Assuming you haven't change the default binding for C-v as quoted-insert, you can prefix each " with that input quoting character:
"\"": "\C-v\"\C-v\"\C-b"
- 54.7k
2
votes
Accepted
Use bash builtin `bind` command when starting chroot
Just a guess:
You are trying to run a Bash built-in command in a chroot like this:
chroot <PATH> bind -f <PATH_IN_CHROOT>/.inputrc && <PROGRAM_TO_RUN>
But your chroot doesn'...
- 828
2
votes
Accepted
Map Alt-c to Ctrl-u
Ctrl+u invokes the unix-line-discard widget in both vi command and insert modes:
bash-5.2$ set -o vi
bash-5.2$ bind -pm vi-command | grep -iw c-u
"\C-u": unix-line-discard
bash-5.2$ bind -pm ...
- 585k
1
vote
Complete list of options for .inputrc / readline
not certain it's complete, but the Archlinux page for readline(3) provides a fairly comprehensive list of options.
In addition to that there's the The GNU Readline Library documentation page which has ...
- 111
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