I would like to be able to copy and paste text in the command line in Bash using the same keyboard bindings that Emacs uses by default (i.e. using C-space for set-mark, M-w to copy text, C-y, M-y to paste it, etc.).
The GNU Bash documentation says that Bash comes with some of these key bindings set up by default.
For example, yanking (C-y) works by default on my terminal. However, I can’t get the set-mark and copy commands to work, and they don’t seem to be bound to any keys by default.
Usually, the way a user can define her own key bindings is to add them to .inputrc. So I looked and found the following bash functions in the documentation that I presume can help me define the Emacs-like behavior that I want (i.e. set-mark with C-space and copy with M-w).
copy-region-as-kill ()
Copy the text in the region to the
kill buffer, so it can be yanked right
away. By default, this command is
unbound.
and
set-mark (<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="02412f42">[email protected]</a>)
Set the mark to the point. If a
numeric argument is supplied, the mark
is set to that position.
If I understand correctly, the above means that copy-region-as-kill is not bound to any keyboard sequence by default, while set-mark is bound to [email protected] by default.
I tried [email protected] on my terminal, but I don’t think it runs set-mark because I don’t see any text highlighted when I move my cursor. In any case, I tried adding keyboard bindings (M-w and C-) to the functions copy-region-as-kill and set-mark above in my .inputrc and then reloading it with C-x C-r, but this didn’t work. I know that my other entries in .inputrc work because I have other user-defined keybindings defined in it.
Is there anything I am doing wrong? Am I missing anything?
Answers:
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Method 1
It doesn’t highlight the selection, but otherwise I think it works fine.
Try running
$ bind -p | grep copy-region-as-kill
to make sure that C-x C-r actually worked.
It should say:
"ew": copy-region-as-kill
After that, it should work fine.
Example:
$ abc<C-Spc><C-a><M-w> def <C-y>
gives me
$ abc def abc
If you ever want to know where mark is, just do C-x C-x.
Example:
$ <C-Spc>abc<C-x><C-x>
will put the cursor back to where you set mark (the start of the line).
Also, I don’t think you need to add the set-mark binding. I didn’t.
$ bind -p | grep set-mark "<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="2c6f016c">[email protected]</a>": set-mark "e ": set-mark # vi-set-mark (not bound)
(note that most terminals send [email protected] when C-Spc is pressed. I assume yours does too.)
If all this fails:
- does Ctrl+Space work in
emacs -nwon the same terminal? - do other Alt/Meta shortcuts work in bash?
Method 2
I also bind C-w for kill-region. Here my .inputrc:
# See http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2009-03/msg00033.html set bind-tty-special-chars off # Define my favorite Emacs key bindings. "[email protected]": set-mark "C-w": kill-region "M-w": copy-region-as-kill "M-/" dabbrev-expand
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