Bash – Use Mac OS command key in bash’s bind command

bashkeyboard shortcutsterminalterminal.app

In my ubuntu bash, I had remapped Ctrl-y key combo to copy text to clipboard as,

bind -x '"\C-y": copy_line_from_x_clipboard'

It works. Now, I am migrating to Macbook, I like to use Command key instead of Ctrl key above. I am not seeing any keybinding examples on net that contain Mac OS' command key.
And I tried to get the key combo for Command-y using the command sed -n l as explained here, but it shows empty line after taking Command-y key input.

For those who are interested, the callee function to paste text from clipboard is,

copy_line_from_x_clipboard() {
        local n=$READLINE_POINT
        local l=$READLINE_LINE
       local s=$(xsel -ob)
       READLINE_LINE=${l:0:$n}$s${l:$n:$((${#l}-n))}
       #READLINE_LINE=${l:0:$n}$s
       READLINE_POINT=$((n+${#s}))
}

Best Answer

According to one of the comments in Use CMD-mappings in console Vim, you cannot use the Command key in Terminal.app, though you could in iTerm2.

You're probably looking for modifier, like shift, control, e.g., something analogous to the alt or meta key.

In Terminal.app's keyboard preferences, you have an initial set of key definitions which use these modifiers—along with Option. You can alter these definitions, or add new ones.

Here are a couple of screenshots showing that dialog:

The second screenshot shows Option (alone, or in combination with other modifiers), but Command is not available for use by programs running in the terminal:

Related Solutions

Bash – bash’s meta key

The mapping from keyboard keys to modifiers like Meta and Control is handled by the X server (i.e. the low-level part of the GUI). This mapping can be manipulated through the old-style xmodmap command or the new-style XKB interface, or through a GUI configuration tools that uses one of these under the hood.

By default, on most setups, the Meta key is the key labeled Alt. This is because historically, many unix workstations had a key labeled Meta where PCs have a key labeled Alt. So if you have a binding for M-C-y, press Ctrl+Alt+Y.

To check what your current bindings are, start the xev program in a terminal. With the xev window focused, press keys; you'll see a transcript of the generated events in the terminal.

The communication between terminal emulators (or terminal devices corresponding to a physical terminals) and applications uses characters. When you press A, the terminal receives the information “A key, no modifier”, but what it sends to the application running in the terminal is the character a. When you press a function key like Up or F1, there's no corresponding character; the terminal sends a character sequence beginning with the escape character (byte 27, sometimes written \e or ^[). When a terminal emulator such as xterm received a key press event with the Meta modifier, it translates that key to an escape character followed by the key's underlying function, e.g. \ea (escape, lowercase a) when you press Meta+A.

What is the exact difference between a 'terminal', a 'shell', a 'tty' and a 'console'? may be useful background.

Bash – How to change readline’s/bash’s meta key

This is the same question I asked I while back, so I'm not taking credit for this, but I had to put

xterm*metaSendsEscape: true
URxvt*altSendsEscape: true

in .Xresources to make Alt work as Meta in both xterm and urxvt. It is a bit contradictory, but it works. So experiment with those options. Also, I had to put

xrdb ~/.Xresources

in .xinitrc for it to work.

Edit: My question: Emacs commands in xterm

Best Answer

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Bash – bash’s meta key

Bash – How to change readline’s/bash’s meta key

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