Bash – How to undo an accidental newline in bash

bashline-editor

If I unintentionally add a newline in a command, as far as I can tell, the only way to undo it is to press Ctrl+c and type the command again. For example:

$ cat 'John's File'
> ^C
$ cat "John's File"

This is annoying if the original command is long.

Is there a way to delete the newline and remove the > prompt so that I can go back to the original command?

Best Answer

Is there a way to delete the newline ... ?

Actually: No. But there are excellent workarounds.

As you have already introduced an Enter, the line has been stored in the list of commands executed. Press ControlC to get out of the command, then, without re-typing, press up-arrow. The command entered appears again, and could be edited.

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Bash Command Line Zsh – How to Remember a Half-Typed Command While Checking Something?

A somewhat faster version of alex's Ctrl+A Ctrl+K (which moves to the front of the line and then cuts everything forward) is to just use Ctrl+U, which cuts backward on bash, and the entire line (regardless of your current position) on zsh. Then you use Ctrl+Y to paste it again

Bash History – How to Undo a Bash History Modification

Try to put in your ~/.inputrc

 set revert-all-at-newline on

In some case you can find it in the default value (Off).
It should force readline to undo all changes to history lines before returning when accept-line is executed. (more info in man bash).

Edit:
CTRL+c and set revert-all-at-newline on works fine since bash-4.3.30.

# GNU bash, version 4.3.30(1)-release
# Emacs-mode

echo c
[up][backspace]d[Ctrl+c][up] # you should see echo c

But:

echo c
[up][backspace]d[down][Ctrl+r]echo[Ctrl+j][Ctrl+c][up] # you should see echo d

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash Command Line Zsh – How to Remember a Half-Typed Command While Checking Something?

Bash History – How to Undo a Bash History Modification

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