Today I Learned

hashrocket A Hashrocket project

Never leave the home row in bash

To edit a command in bash you often need to jump around in the line and revert to using the arrow keys. As a vim/emacs user this becomes a bit of a clumsy non-ergonomic movement, here are some shortcuts to help you keep your fingers on the home row. If you are an emacs user these are going to look familiar.

  • ctrl-p - previous command entered
  • ctrl-n - next command entered
  • ctrl-a - jump to BOL
  • ctrl-e - jump to EOL
  • alt-b - jump word forward
  • alt-f - jump word backwards
  • alt-b - jump character forward
  • alt-f - jump character backwards

If these shortcuts don't work try running set -o emacs

Alternatively you can turn on vi mode in your shell by calling set -o vi, which you can add to your .zshrc or add set editing-mode vi to your .inputrc. After setting this you can enter normal mode by hitting escape and use vi motions to edit/move.

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