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Is there a way speed up Linux CLI navigation when I must enter long commands? I simply use arrows right now, and - if I have a long command it takes some time to get from start of the command to the middle of it.

Is there a way to for example jump to the middle of the command without using arrows?

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5 Answers 5

Reset to default
205

Some useful line editing key bindings provided by the Readline library:

  • Ctrl + A: go to the beginning of line
  • Ctrl + E: go to the end of line
  • Alt + B: skip one word backward
  • Alt + F: skip one word forward
  • Ctrl + U: delete to the beginning of line
  • Ctrl + K: delete to the end of line
  • Alt + D: delete to the end of word
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  • 7
    +1 because this works even when, for some reasons, ctrl-arrows do not work. Worth to note, for screen users, Ctrl-A becomes Ctrl-A A.
    – enzotib
    Commented May 27, 2011 at 18:54
  • 3
    To undo a deletion (or move text by deleting it), use Ctrl + Y.
    – Lekensteyn
    Commented Jun 8, 2011 at 22:48
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    Ctrl+Right arrow, Ctrl+Left arrow worth mentioning.
    – mac
    Commented Jan 16, 2014 at 15:04
  • 3
    On Ubuntu using Gnome and GnomeTerminal Alt-A opens the menu instead of moving the cursor. How do you use Alt-A with Gnome? I mean, Gnome is the default, so it's likely anyone reading this would be running a terminal in Gnome.
    – Jason
    Commented Aug 5, 2014 at 23:42
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    If you're connecting to Ubuntu from OS X over SSH you may have to use "Esc" instead of Ctrl e.g., Esc-A, Esc-E and so on. This is true for iTerm and Terminal.
    – Friedrich 'Fred' Clausen
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 0:30
88

Some more shortcuts from here

Ctrl + a  – Go to the start of the command line
Ctrl + e  – Go to the end of the command line
Ctrl + k  – Delete from cursor to the end of the command line
Ctrl + u  – Delete from cursor to the start of the command line
Ctrl + w  – Delete from cursor to start of word (i.e. delete backwards one word)
Ctrl + y  – Paste word or text that was cut using one of the deletion shortcuts (such as the one above) after the cursor
Ctrl + xx – Move between start of command line and current cursor position (and back again)
Alt  + b  – Move backward one word (or go to start of word the cursor is currently on)
Alt  + f  – Move forward one word (or go to end of word the cursor is currently on)
Alt  + d  – Delete to end of word starting at cursor (whole word if cursor is at the beginning of word)
Alt  + c  – Capitalize 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  + t  – Swap current word with previous
Ctrl + f  – Move forward one character
Ctrl + b  – Move backward one character
Ctrl + d  – Delete character under the cursor
Ctrl + h  – Delete character before the cursor
Ctrl + t  – Swap character under cursor with the previous one
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  • 2
    Thank you for this straightforward, chit-chat-less list.
    – neverMind9
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 10:04
17

If you're a vi[m] and bash user, you may find it useful to make readline (used by bash) use vi-style editing by adding set editing-mode vi to your ~/.inputrc or /etc/inputrc files. Or, you could just make bash use vi-style editing by running the bash command set -o vi. Add the command to your ~/.bashrc file to make the behavior persistent.

If you're a zsh user, add bindkey -v to your .zshrc file for vi-style editting.

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1
8

I do not know of a way to specifically jump to the middle without using the cursor keys. However, I can recommend using Ctrl + cursor key to move from blank to blank (i.e., jump from one word to another).

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0
5

Source the code-snippet below in your .bashrc. Ctrl-a jumps to the start and pressing Ctrl-a again jumps to the middle.

jump_mid() {
    if [ "$READLINE_POINT" -eq "0" ]; then
        LEN=${#READLINE_LINE}
        POS=$(($LEN / 2))
        READLINE_POINT=$POS
    else
        READLINE_POINT=0
    fi
}
bind -x '"\C-a" : jump_mid'

Or if you want to use Ctrl-Something to directly jump to the middle, change the code to:

jump_mid() {
    LEN=${#READLINE_LINE}
    POS=$(($LEN / 2))
    READLINE_POINT=$POS
}

And bind it to something different than Ctrl-a.

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