Chapter 1

Basic editing operations

• Move within the line

  • Ctrl + A: move the cursor to the start of the line
  • Ctrl + E: move the cursor to the end of the line.
  • Ctrl + B: moving backward within a line.
  • Ctrl + F: moving forward within a line.
  • Ctrl + Left arrow key: moves backward a word at a time, as does pressing Esc and then B or F.
  • Ctrl + Right arrow key: moves forward a word at a time.

• Delete text

  • Ctrl + D/Delete: deletes the character under the cursor, whereas pressing the Backspace key deletes the character to the left of the cursor.
  • Ctrl + K: deletes all text from the cursor to the end of the line.
  • Ctrl + X + Backspace: deletes all the text from the cursor to the beginning of the line.

• Transpose text

  • Ctrl + T: transposes the character before the cursor with the character under the cursor.
  • Esc and then T transposes the two words immediately before (or under) the cursor.

• Invoke an editor to edit command

  1. Ctrl + X followed by Ctrl + E. The bash shell attempts to launch the editor defined by the $FCEDIT or $EDITOR environment variable or Emacs as a last resort.
  2. Start editing your command, when you are done, save and exit to the terminal.
  3. The edited command is run automatically.