Command history in emacs shell mode - bash

In the bash shell, I can use the up arrow key to navigate to a previously entered command. But this does not work in emacs shell mode. Is there any way to enable this?

M-p (and M-n for the other direction) will do the trick.
Here is the link to the Emacs manual on the subject.

Add this to your ~/.emacs:
(define-key comint-mode-map (kbd "<up>") 'comint-previous-input)
(define-key comint-mode-map (kbd "<down>") 'comint-next-input)

C-p and C-n and C-r work in (vanilla) bash too, along with some other emacs keys. Very handy.

In Gnu Emacs, the menu for the Shell mode is called "In/Out". (I think it also covers the more general mode called "comint".)

Related

How do you terminate a process inside a shell in emacs?

I work a lot in a shell inside emacs (on a Mac). It used to be that, when I typed control-Q control-C, that would kill a process running in the shell. About a year ago, though, that stopped working for some reason; now it has no effect. Anyone know why, or another way of doing this?
I had the same problem using term-mode.
I bound term-interrupt-subjob to my keybinding of choice with:
(add-hook 'term-mode-hook (lambda ()
(define-key term-raw-map (kbd "C-'") 'term-interrupt-subjob)
I am not sure which mode you are using to interact with a shell from Emacs (the inferior shell, Emacs shell, or the terminal emulator). So you might have to modify this a little by replacing term-interrupt-subjob by, for instance, comint-interrupt-subjob and changing the mode hook.
To answer your questions in the comments:
You add the function in your .emacs file. For it to take effect, you need to evaluate it: you can select it and run M-x eval-region or you can restart Emacs.
If you are running M-x shell, you are using shell-mode.
Note that to know which major mode you are using, you can run describe-mode.
Since you are using shell-mode, you want to use add-hook 'shell-mode-hook instead of add-hook 'term-mode-hook and shell-mode-map instead of term-raw-map.
However, in shell-mode, C-c C-c does by default run the command comint-interrupt-subjob. So this should work out of the box as Rorschach said. I am not sure why it isn't working for you.
You can try:
(add-hook 'shell-mode-hook (lambda ()
(define-key shell-mode-map (kbd "C-c C-c") 'comint-interrupt-subjob)
to see if that helps. But this should already be set since it is the default, so it is really unclear whether it will solve your problem.

How to set CMD key-binding in Emacs?

I'm using Emacs in Mac OS X terminal, installed with homebrew.
My CTRL key is my C key, and the ALT key is Meta.
How would I define key-bindings for CMD key combinations?
For instance, I want to set CMD-(right arrow) to go to the end of the line.
EDIT
I've tried #nickcarlo's suggestions below
(setq mac-command-modifier 'super)
(global-set-key (kbd "s-<right>") 'move-end-of-line)
I don't think CMD key is being set to super properly, since I don't see s-foo in the mini-buffer as I would if I had typed C-x or M-x or anything. I noticed that CMD-right, when I have two terminal windows open, switches between the two terminal windows, so I thought that might be blocking any custom setting. However, I tried:
(global-set-key (kbd "s-9") 'move-end-of-line)
.. and CMD-9 still does nothing, except beep to tell me I've pressed something wrong.
Setting non-CMD key-combos seems to work fine, like:
(global-set-key (kbd "C-w") 'move-end-of-line)
You can set it with something like:
(global-set-key (kbd "s-<right>") 'move-end-of-line)
"s" being the reference to your command key.
PS: I'm not on my mac right now so I'm not sure what exactly you need to write to set it to the specific keys you mentioned to move it to the end of line but command is represented by an s in emacs.
EDIT
Just tested this on my mac. This is the exact code you'd write (if you wanted to set it globally) to bind your command key + right arrow key to move your cursor to the end of line.
If the above doesn't work, you could also try
(global-set-key (kbd "\s <right>") 'move-end-of-line)
The difference between the one above and this one is that the above equates to CMD+right and this one equates to CMD and then release CMD and hit the right key. Both work on OS X on my system.
Also check out the following post to set your CMD as the super key in case your Emacs doesn't already register it as such:
http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_hyper_super_keys.html
Specifically, you can use the following code to set up your CMD key as Super:
(setq mac-command-modifier 'super)
In Aquamacs, what worked for me is the following
(global-set-key (kbd "A-r") 'my-command)
Step 1: c-x c-f .emacs // opens .emacs file
Step 2: Add the following lines at the end of .emacs file
;; changing the command to control
(setq mac-command-modifier 'control)
Step 3: Save .emacs file
Step 4: M-x eval-buffer //M-x = Alt-x // This evaluates .emacs buffer and reloads Emacs
Step 5: Try CMD-e to go to end of the line. // Now CMD acts like control
Step 6: Still CMD-e does't work restart Emacs.
Enjoy Using Emacs!

Emacs M-x shell and the overriding of bash keyboard bindings

If I understand correctly, when running bash under M-x shell, Emacs overrides some of the bash keyboard bindings, and can make some bash commands and features not work as in "native bash" (for an example see this thread)
One of the commands that I use frequently in bash is clear-screen (bounded to Ctrl-l by default ).
Is there an easy way of asking Emacs to reproduce the same behavior in shell-mode so that I can clear my bash screen within Emacs?
I know I can always use M-x term to get a real terminal, but I would like to work out a solution for M-x shell
EDIT: When I type C-l C-l, Emacs moves the current line to the top of the window, but as soon as I enter a new command in bash, the window is scrolled again to the original position.
Thanks
Just type M-> to go to the bottom of the buffer (if necessary), then C-l C-l to move the current line to the top of the window. It looks as if you've cleared your screen, but all of the content that would have been erased is still present above the top of the window.
EDIT:
To keep Emacs from scrolling the window as you described, put this in your .emacs file:
(remove-hook 'comint-output-filter-functions
'comint-postoutput-scroll-to-bottom)
I found that behavior irritating as well.
You could re-bind C-l in shell mode to make it function in the manner you want:
(define-key shell-mode-map (kbd "C-l")
(lambda ()
(interactive)
(previous-line)
(end-of-line)
(let ((start (point))
(end (goto-char (point-min))))
(delete-region start end)
(kill-line)
(end-of-buffer))))

How to define shortcuts using the mac 'command' key in aquamacs (or emacs)

How can I define an aquamacs keyboard shortcut using the mac command key. I'd like 'command'-k to act like ctrl-k (kill line).
Thanks in advance!
Put this in your .emacs file:
(global-set-key (kbd "A-k") 'kill-line)
Then you can either press C-x C-e with the pointer at the end of this line to make the command active, or you can save the file and re-start emacs.

Copy/Paste in emacs ansi-term shell

I have configured my emacs to run zsh shell within ansi-term. However, copy/paste no longer works i.e. nothing is getting pasted from kill-ring to the terminal.
Changing the TERM to vt100, or eterm doesn't solve the problem.
Would appreciate any ideas or solution.
To provide context I have configured ansi-term as follows:
(global-set-key "\C-x\C-a" '(lambda ()(interactive)(ansi-term "/bin/zsh")))
(global-set-key "\C-x\ a" '(lambda ()(interactive)(ansi-term "/bin/zsh")))
You may want to simply switch between character mode and line mode while using the terminal. C-c C-j will run term-line-mode, which treats the terminal buffer more like a normal text-buffer in which you can move the cursor and yank text. You can switch back to character mode by running term-char-mode with C-c C-k.
As described in this lovely blog snippet, there's a function, term-paste, in term.el, that does exactly what you want. By default it's bound only to S-insert but the blog's recommended C-c C-y seems like a good suggestion.
ansi-term, in char-mode, takes the ordinary bindings for the terminal emulation. You need a new binding, plus a way to output to ansi-term correctly. I use this:
(defun ash-term-hooks ()
;; dabbrev-expand in term
(define-key term-raw-escape-map "/"
(lambda ()
(interactive)
(let ((beg (point)))
(dabbrev-expand nil)
(kill-region beg (point)))
(term-send-raw-string (substring-no-properties (current-kill 0)))))
;; yank in term (bound to C-c C-y)
(define-key term-raw-escape-map "\C-y"
(lambda ()
(interactive)
(term-send-raw-string (current-kill 0)))))
(add-hook 'term-mode-hook 'ash-term-hooks)
When you do this, C-c C-y will yank. It only does one yank, though, and you can't cycle through your kill-buffer. It's possible to do this, but I haven't implemented it yet.
The above solutions work well for copying text from some buffer to ansi-term, but they aren't able to copy text from ansi-term to another buffer (eg copy a command you just ran to a shell script you're editing). Adding this to my .emacs file solved that problem for me (in Emacs 24.4):
(defun my-term-mode-hook ()
(define-key term-raw-map (kbd "C-y") 'term-paste)
(define-key term-raw-map (kbd "C-k")
(lambda ()
(interactive)
(term-send-raw-string "\C-k")
(kill-line))))
(add-hook 'term-mode-hook 'my-term-mode-hook)
Note that if you want to bind kill/yank to a keystroke that starts with the ansi-term escape characters (by default C-c and C-x), and want this to work in the unlikely event that those change, you can instead define your keystrokes (without the leading escape) to term-raw-escape-map, as is done in user347585's answer.
These other solutions don't work well for me, switching between character mode and line mode causes ansi-term to stop working properly randomly, and setting ansi-term's term-paste to C-c C-y (based on Glyph's link), didn't work the code snippet was for term, not ansi-term:
(eval-after-load "ansi-term"
'(define-key ansi-term-raw-map (kbd "C-c C-y") 'term-paste))
I enabled xterm-mouse-mode, after that I was able to select text using mouse and copy using standard Mac command C button in ansi-term in emacs GUI in Mac OS X,

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