CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxbashterminal
rkachach
rkachach

Reputation: 17325

Terminal command line quick navigation

I would like to move between the command line arguments in a fast way. For example, if I have the following command line:

> do_something_with /very_long_path/to_a_very_long_directory/ more_args
                    ^                                       ^

I would like to skip the whole path (jump between the ^ symbols). I'm already familiar with word mode (Alt+B and Alt+F) but in some scenarios it's not enough to navigate quickly between the arguments.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 769

Answers (3)

jtony
jtony

Reputation: 101

For vi/vim users ctrl+] + char can be used to quickly navigate to the first occurance of a given char. Which is equivalent to f + char in vi/vim.

Upvotes: 0

Benjamin W.
Benjamin W.

Reputation: 52112

There are (quote from manual)

shell-forward-word ()

Move forward to the end of the next word. Words are delimited by non-quoted shell metacharacters.

and

shell-backward-word ()

Move back to the start of the current or previous word. Words are delimited by non-quoted shell metacharacters.

I have bound them to Ctrl+Alt+F and Ctrl+Alt+B by adding this to my .inputrc:

"\e\C-f": shell-forward-word
"\e\C-b": shell-backward-word

Upvotes: 1

Zermingore
Zermingore

Reputation: 753

In bash, you can set the cursor to the previous given character using the following features:

character-search and character-search-backward features.

ctrl+], (resp. alt+ctrl+]) + searched_character

In your example, you can search backward for a space.

> do_something_with /very/long/path/\ with_spaces\ directory/ more_args
                 ^                                        ^

Unfortunately, this will not work so well with paths like:

> do_something_with /very_\ long_path/to_a_\ very_long_directory/ more_args

As a sidenote, you can use ctrl+a and ctrl+e to go at the beginning / end of a line.

Upvotes: 2

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