Bash shortcuts on the command line
Even when you’re using the command line for quite a few years, you might have missed or forgotten some very handy shortcuts which are very useful in daily use.
The command to show the complete list:
bind -P | less |
You can also create your own:
- to go backward one word at time with ‘control-b’
$ bind '"\C-b"':backward-word |
- or launch an application
$ bind -x '"\C-e"':xeyes |
I googled a bit around and came up with this nice table which summarizes some of the most useful shortcuts.
| Bash Shortcuts Quick Reference | |
| Ctrl-a | Move to the start of the line. |
| Ctrl-e | Move to the end of the line. |
| Ctrl-b | Move back one character. |
| Alt-b | Move back one word. |
| Ctrl-f | Move forward one character. |
| Alt-f | Move forward one word. |
| 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. |
| Ctrl-u | Delete from the cursor to the beginning of the line. |
| Ctrl-k | Delete from the cursor to the end of the line. |
| Ctrl-w | Delete from the cursor to the start of the word. |
| Esc-Del | Delete previous word (may not work, instead try Esc followed by Backspace) |
| Ctrl-y | Pastes text from the clipboard. |
| Ctrl-l | Clear the screen leaving the current line at the top of the screen. |
| Ctrl-x Ctrl-u | Undo the last changes. Ctrl-_ does the same |
| Alt-r | Undo all changes to the line. |
| Alt-Ctrl-e | Expand command line. |
| Ctrl-r | Incremental reverse search of history. |
| Alt-p | Non-incremental reverse search of history. |
| !! | Execute last command in history |
| !abc | Execute last command in history beginning with abc |
| !abc:p | Print last command in history beginning with abc |
| !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 |
Thanks to: http://www.ice2o.com/bash.php
There was also a very beautiful? But nevertheless very useful sheet out there which can help you out with even more bash shell shortcuts:
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