Bash Command Shortcuts
How many times do you find yourself using arrow keys to scroll to the beginning or the end of line of the command line in bash terminal? Do you use backspace to delete every character of what you type to clear the command line? Well, if you answer “yes” to any of the two questions, continue reading.
I, myself, have been doing this a lot because I couldn’t remember the shortcut keys to do those tasks. So, I decided to write them here as a reference that could be referred to in the future. You can easily find the same or even thorough information on the web.
| Useful Shortcut Keys | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Key sequence | What it does | ||
| Ctrl + U | Delete to the end of line | ||
| Alt + D | Delete to the end of current word | ||
| Alt + Backspace | Delete to the start of current word | ||
| Ctrl + A | Move to the start of line | ||
| Ctrl + E | Move to the end of line | ||
| Ctrl + Left Arrow | Move one word to the left | ||
| Ctrl + Left Arrow | Move one word to the right | ||
I hope those shortcuts could save you some time and the fingers from getting sore.
Ctrl + A Go to the beginning of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl + E Go to the end of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl + L Clears the Screen, similar to the clear command
Ctrl + U Clears the line before the cursor position. If you are at the end of the line, clears the entire line.
Ctrl + H Same as backspace
Ctrl + R Let’s you search through previously used commands
Ctrl + C Kill whatever you are running
Ctrl + D Exit the current shell
Ctrl + Z Puts whatever you are running into a suspended background process. fg restores it.
Ctrl + W Delete the word before the cursor
Ctrl + K Clear the line after the cursor
Ctrl + T Swap the last two characters before the cursor
Esc + T Swap the last two words before the cursor
Alt + F Move cursor forward one word on the current line
Alt + B Move cursor backward one word on the current line
Tab Auto-complete files and folder names
Thanks for adding more shortcuts.