Bash – Execute a readline function without keybinding

bashinputrcreadlineshell

I was just reading the readline man-page and discovered a bunch of great commands I didn't know about. However, several don't have default key bindings. Is there a way to execute the unbound commands from the shell?

I'm not asking how to bind the command in ~/.inputrc, but instead how to execute it as a "one off" from the shell or in a bash script.

For example, the "dump-variables" command. Is there some command I can feed "dump-variables" to as an argument to have it executed?

Best Answer

I believe what you are looking for is the bind command itself. According to man builtin information running bind <readline-command> allows you to run one-offs, however, I couldn't get it to work like the manual says it should...it kept making keys not work for me; your mileage may vary. I did find the following commands which may be of use to you.

bind -p # Equivalent to dump-functions [machine readable]
bind -P # Equivalent to dump-functions [human readable]

bind -s # Equivalent to dump-macros    [machine readable]
bind -S # Equivalent to dump-macros    [human readable]

bind -v # Equivalent to dump-variables [machine readable]
bind -V # Equivalent to dump-variables [human readable]

Edit Note I would like to point out how annoying it is that it doesn't work like the manual says it should because if you type in bind and then press tab for auto-complete, it shows all of the commands.

Related Solutions

Bash Emacs – How to Copy and Set Mark in Bash as in Emacs

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
"\C-@": set-mark
"\e ": set-mark
# vi-set-mark (not bound)

(note that most terminals send C-@ when C-Spc is pressed. I assume yours does too.)

If all this fails:

does Ctrl+Space work in emacs -nw on the same terminal?
do other Alt/Meta shortcuts work in bash?

Bash readline: Key binding that executes an external command

Not all bash line editing is controlled from ~/.inputrc; much of it is configured via the bind builtin. In this case, you want something like

bind -x '"\C-gu":uptime'

in your ~/.bashrc.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash Emacs – How to Copy and Set Mark in Bash as in Emacs

Bash readline: Key binding that executes an external command

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