Readline shortcuts

Readline shortcuts

GNU Readline is the library used to make advanced command-line wizardry convenient and conistent across a multitude of command-line applications. These programs include bash, bc, ftp, gnuplot, gpg, ksh, mysql, psql, python, smbclient, xmllint and zsh.
The cheatsheet at the right contains a summary of many of the useful line editing command shortcuts which are available in all applications that use libreadline.
See the documentation on the Readline website for even more shortcuts with more elaborate descriptions.

– rowan@bigsmoke.us

	Emacs keys	Action	Scope	Direction/Place
Moving around	Ctrl-b	Move the cursor	one character	⇦ to the left
	Ctrl-f	Move the cursor	one character	⇨ to the right
	Alt-b	Move the cursor	one word	⇦ to the left
	Alt-f	Move the cursor	one word	⇨ to the right
	Ctrl-a	Move the cursor		⇤ to the start of the line
	Ctrl-e	Move the cursor		⇥ to the end of the line
	Ctrl-x-x[1]	Move the cursor		⇤⇥ to the start, and to the end again
Cut, copy and paste	Backspace	Delete	the character	⇦ to the left of the cursor
	DEL Ctrl-d	Delete	the character	underneath the cursor
	Ctrl-u	Delete	everything	⇤ from the cursor back to the line start
	Ctrl-k	Delete	everything	⇥ from the cursor to the end of the line
	Alt-d	Delete	word	⇨ untill before the next word boundary
	Ctrl-w	Delete	word	⇦ untill after the previous word boundary
	Ctrl-y	Yank/Paste	prev. killed text	at the cursor position
	Alt-y	Yank/Paste	prev. prev. killed text	at the cursor position
History	Ctrl-p	Move in history	one line	⇧ before this line
	Ctrl-n	Move in history	one line	⇩ after this line
	Alt->	Move in history	all the lines	⇩ to the line currently being entered
	Ctrl-r	Incrementally search the line history		⇧ backwardly
	Ctrl-s[2]	Incrementally search the line history		⇩ forwardly
	Ctrl-J	End an incremental search
	Ctrl-G	Abort an incremental search and restore the original line
	Alt-Ctrl-y	Yank/Paste	arg. 1 of prev. cmnd	at the cursor position
	Alt-. Alt-_	Yank/Paste	last arg of prev. cmnd	at the cursor position
Undo	Ctrl-_ Ctrl-x Ctrl-u	Undo the last editing command; you can undo all the way back to an empty line
	Alt-r	Undo all changes made to this line
	Ctrl-l	Clear the screen, reprinting the current line at the top
	Ctrl-l	Clear the screen, reprinting the current line at the top
Completion	TAB	Auto-complete a name
	Alt-/[3]	Auto-complete a name (without smart completion)
	Alt-?	List the possible completions of the preceeding text
	Alt-*	Insert all possible completions of the preceeding text
Transpose	Ctrl-t	Transpose/drag	char. before the cursor	↷ over the character at the cursor
	Alt-t	Transpose/drag	word before the cursor	↷ over the word at/after the cursor