Since macOS changed to zsh as default, I try to update my keybindings for it.
In bash I could use the following command:
bind '"\C-a": revert-line' # Revert/resets the changed history line while you are on it with the the cursor
I do not find any function like that on zsh.
bindkey "^a" what-to-put-here
Do you know how to accomplish it with zsh?
revert-line is a function provided by readline. While, ZSH doesn't depend on readline. ZSH has its own editor in command line called ZLE(ZSH Line Editor).
There doesn't seem to be a reset all function in the ZLE builtins. Correct me if I'm wrong.
undo may be an alternative for you.
undo
Incrementally undo the last text modification. When called from a user-defined widget, takes an optional argument indicating a previous state of the undo history as returned by the UNDO_CHANGE_NO variable; modifications are undone until that state is reached, subject to any limit imposed by the UNDO_LIMIT_NO variable.
bindkey "^a" undo
Related
As an example, say that I type part of a name:
$ vi partn <= here I press <tab><tab>
partname partnook partnum <= these are the results
This is standard behaviour in bash and that is fine, but I've been working a lot on PowerShell lately where the default behaviour is that if you press tab, it cycles through the names, completing each name and then pressing tab again will go to the next file, so if I pressed tab one time, I see vi ./partname, then press tab again, I see vi ./partnook, then tab again I see vi ./partnum. I tend to prefer this behaviour as it's less typing (you just hit tab to cycle through until you get the filename or command that you want).
Everything is customisable in Linux of course, so can someone advise how I might change the default bash behaviour to follow the above by default?
To persistently make tab-completion not require two Tab keypresses whenever there are multiple matching completions and to instead cycle through them, in-line:
Option A: If you either already have:
an /etc/inputrc file (applies system-wide, modification requires sudo)
and/or a ~/.inputrc file (user-specific)
and/or
you're planning to customize the Readline library extensively and/or want to make customizations effective for scripts too when they call read -e:
Add line:
"\C-i": menu-complete
to either file, depending on whether you want the setting to be effective for all users or the current user (create the file, if necessary).
Note: Alternatively, you can simply turn off the need to press Tab twice and exhibit the standard behavior instantly, which means showing a multi-column list of all possible completions, and then redisplaying the input line, to allow you to type additional characters to either fully complete the argument or to type enough of it so that the next Tab keypress unambiguously completes:
set show-all-if-ambiguous on
Option B: Alternatively, you may add Readline commands to your user-specific initialization file (~/.bash_profile on macOS, ~/.bashrc on Linux and other Unix-like platforms), by passing them as a single argument to the bind builtin:
bind '"\C-i": menu-complete'
If you prefer the show-all-matches behavior:
bind 'set show-all-if-ambiguous on'
Note that bind commands in ~/.bash_profile / ~/.bashrc take precedence over equivalent commands in either /etc/inputrc or ~/.inputrc.
As implied above, configuring Readline this way will not take effect in scripts that call read -e in order to activate Readline support for reading user input.
I just found out in zsh if I have a variable, namely abc="cba", and if I type echo ${!abc} and pressing enter, it doesnt go as command but instead open new prompt below with expanded variable echo ${abc="cba"}.
And probably included that powerful zsh plugin that let us automatically insert sudo just by double tapping Esc.
So for further studying and probably opening new possibilities, what is the right terminology about that typed-command-but-not-entered manipulation?
Thanks...
Those seem to be unrelated. The first is zsh asking you to verify history expansion. The second is a ZLE (Zsh Line Editor) widget with a keybinding to modify the current command line. You can see what this ZLE widget looks like in oh-my-zsh the source code.
I have added several aliases to my .zshrc file and they ONLY work if I restart terminal or use the source ~/.zshrc If I just open terminal, then type the alias, it will not recognize it, until I call source ~/.zshrc
So I know it's not a problem with the alias I created, I just have to load up the .zshrc file every time I want to use them.
What is going on? How can I fix this?
Well, you don't expect that you only have to edit a file and then, by magic, all your current zsh instances somehow ingest the changes, do you?
From the zsh man page, section STARTUP/SHUTDOWN FILES :
if the shell is interactive, commands are read from /etc/zshrc and then $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc
($ZDOTDIR defaults to your $HOME). Hence, if you are in your terminal, you have three choices. Two of them you already found out (restart the terminal, source .zshrc manually). The third choice would be to just open a zsh subshell (by typing zsh).
Actually, there is a trick to do some "magic" in reading the file automatically: Zsh allows you to define a so-called precmd hook, which allows you to establish an arbitrary command to be executed just before a command prompt will be displayed. You could use it to source any file you like. If you want to use this feature, I strongly recommend against sourcing all of .zshrc. Sooner or later, you will have stuff in .zshrc that you don't want to be executed every time.
Instead, put your alias definitions into a separate file, say $HOME/.aliases, and in Zsh define the hook
function precmd {
source $HOME/.aliases
}
If you later change the .aliases file, you would still have to type a Carriage Return in your shell, in order to provoke a new prompt to be written and the precmd to be executed, but this is less cumbersome than sourcing the file manually.
I want to have the same function of Bash+emacs_mode on Zsh+vi_mode, when you type ESC+. you get the last argument of the last command under the cursor. How can I get it on ZSH?
You can use the same widget (insert-last-word) in both viins and emacs mode; it just isn't bound to a key by default in viins mode.
Run the following in the current shell (and add it to .zshrc for it to take effect in future shells).
bindkey -M viins '\e.' insert-last-word
I've been meaning to find a solution for this for YEARS.
I am sooo much more productive in vim when manipulating files than bash for this reason.
If I have
file_12390983421
file_12391983421
file_12340983421
file_12390986421
In bash and type file_1->tab , it obviously lists:
file_12390983421 file_12391983421 file_12340983421 file_12390986421
And this is horrible and painful to work with.
The same sequence in vim will loop through the files one at a time.
Please someone tell me how to do this in bash, or if there is another shell that can do this, I'll switch tomorrow.
By default TAB is bound to the complete readline command. Your desired behavior would be menu-complete instead. You can change your readlines settings by editing ~/.inputrc. To rebind TAB, add this line:
TAB: menu-complete
For more details see the READLINE section in man bash.
For bash >= 4 you might like these settings. You can try them directly on the command-line, and put them in your ~/.bash_profile if you like them.
# If there are multiple matches for completion, Tab should cycle through them
bind 'TAB:menu-complete'
# And Shift-Tab should cycle backwards
bind '"\e[Z": menu-complete-backward'
# Display a list of the matching files
bind "set show-all-if-ambiguous on"
# Perform partial (common) completion on the first Tab press, only start
# cycling full results on the second Tab press (from bash version 5)
bind "set menu-complete-display-prefix on"
This setup is similar to Vim's set wildmode=longest:full:list,full
I pulled these settings from this question on the Unix & Linux site.
By the way, since you are here, here are some other great bindings:
# Cycle through history based on characters already typed on the line
bind '"\e[A":history-search-backward'
bind '"\e[B":history-search-forward'
# Keep Ctrl-Left and Ctrl-Right working when the above are used
bind '"\e[1;5C":forward-word'
bind '"\e[1;5D":backward-word'
This means if you type ssh<Up> it will cycle through previous lines where you ran ssh
If you don't like what you got, you can clear the line with Ctrl-K Ctrl-U
I pulled these settings from this question on AskUbuntu.
On top of
# cycle forward
Control-k: menu-complete
# cycle backward
Control-j: menu-complete-backward
you may also consider adding
# display one column with matches
set completion-display-width 1
This way you would preserve the current Tab functionality and make bash display the possibilities in one column. So instead of
file_12340983421 file_12390983421 file_12390986421 file_12391983421
you would get
file_12340983421
file_12390983421
file_12390986421
file_12391983421
P.S. You can get up to date readline library from this The GNU Readline Library website.
Thanks to #sth I found what works best for me:
To keep normal bash tab completion, and then use ctl-f to cycle through when needed using menu-complete
put this in your .inputrc file:
"\C-f": menu-complete
In my experience, the solution provided in sth's answer has never completely worked for me. TL;DR: Add set -o vi to your ~/.bashrc.
When using menu-complete in conjunction with vi keybindings, I have to make sure that my ~/.bashrc has:
set -o vi
It's never been enough for my ~/.inputrc just to have:
TAB: menu-complete
set editing-mode vi
set keymap vi
My guess is that somehow set editing-mode and set keymap are clobbering the TAB: ... setting, but I haven't looked into the documentation thoroughly to figure out why this is the case.