Bash – Bindkey to execute command (Zsh)

bashkeyboard shortcutsreadlineshellzlezsh

In bash one can do the following:

bind -x '"\C-l":ls'

to map Ctrl+L to external (ie. system's rather than readline function)

ls command to list directory contents.

How to do the same in zsh, and preferably with Alt (\M-l?)

instead of Ctrl as it is seemingly already bound to clear to clear the screen.

Best Answer

% namingthingsishard () { echo; ls; zle redisplay }
% zle -N namingthingsishard                  
% bindkey '^l' namingthingsishard                  
%

This binds control+l because I don't know what \M-l generates for you; running read -r and then mashing keys might show something suitable to use with bindkey, or run bindkey with no arguments to show what is already set. For more information on bindkey and widgets, see zshzle(1).

Related Solutions

Bash Keyboard Shortcuts – How to Remap Ctrl-l

The bind command defines new key bindings. With the -x parameter, you can assign a shell snippet to a key. The quoting is a bit strange: the key must be quoted for the readline key parser, and the binding description must be quoted because it contains several shell special characters.

bind -x '"\C-l": clear; ls'

Bash – Readline: Binding an ANSI escape sequence to a key

Two parts:

bash lets you bind a key to the readline clear-screen function (which seems to be the original goal).
in bash, readline's purpose is to prepare text (by editing, etc) for issuing commands to bash. An escape sequence would be sent to the terminal. None of the listed functions for readline would act as a replacement for echo or printf.

Key bindings for readline expect a single function-name or literal string. In your example, readline read what it considered a possible function name, and ignored the rest of the line.

So: no, bash/readline provide no useful features for echoing an escape sequence directly as a key-binding. You have to go another level, as noted, using echo.

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Related Solutions

Bash Keyboard Shortcuts – How to Remap Ctrl-l

Bash – Readline: Binding an ANSI escape sequence to a key

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