Xterm and other terminals through terminal control characters based on the type of terminal emulation. Commons terminal type are VT100...
Note : Most of these keystrokes come from the readline library, and have nothing to do with the terminal type or terminal emulator used (except that some terminals emulators don't play well with control/meta keys). When using bash (which uses readline), a list of shortcuts it offers is obtained by entering "bind -P" at the command prompt.
XTerm - VT100[]
Clearing functions[]
| Keyboard Commands | Function |
|---|---|
| Ctrl-k | clear all characters after the cursor |
| Ctrl-w | clears word before the cursor. a word is set of characters separated by spaces |
| Ctrl-u | Clears all characters before the cursor |
| Ctrl-l | clear screen |
| Ctrl-d | deletes characters to the right of cursor, if no characters, logs out and closes terminal |
| Delete | deletes characters to the right of cursor (this may vary depending on settings) |
| Ctrl-h or Ctrl-8 or Ctrl-Shift-/ | deletes characters to the left or the cursor |
| Backspace | deletes characters to the left or the cursor (this may vary depending on settings) |
| Ctrl-7 or Ctrl-Shift-- | Removes a number? of characters from the end |
| ALT-Backspace | Removes words, not single chars. (same as CTRL+W) |
Cursor movement[]
| Keyboard Commands | Function |
|---|---|
| Ctrl-a or Home | returns cursor to Home |
| Ctrl-f | moves cursor right (forward) |
| Ctrl+e or End | Moves cursor to the end of the line |
| Crtl-b | movers cursor to the left (backward) |
| Ctrl-n |
same as down arrow |
| Ctrl-p | same as up arrow |
Other[]
| Keyboard Commands | Function |
|---|---|
| Ctrl-m or Ctrl-j | carriage return |
| Ctrl-i | same as tab |
| Ctrl-e | Return Terminal Status ? |
| Ctrl-r | Search: Reverse search for previous commands matching the pattern entered |
| Ctrl-t | Switched the character before the cursor with the one under the cursor |
| Ctrl-y | Enters the command executed two lines before, without clearing the line of previous contents |
| Ctrl-o | Executes command without clearing the line |
| Ctrl-p | previous command |
| Ctrl-a | returns cursor to Home |
| Ctrl-s | In effect, locks the screen (Ctrl-q unlocks it). XOFF signal for software flow control. |
| Ctrl-q | Unlocks the screen after a XOFF signal. XON signal for software flow control. |
| Ctrl-f | moves cursor right (forward) |
| Ctrl-g | Bell (beep) |
| Ctrl-z | pauses process and places it in terminal background (resume with command 'fg') |
| Ctrl-x | ? |
| Ctrl-c | kill process |
| Ctrl-v | displays next typed characters (code?) |
| Crtl-b | movers cursor to the left (backward) |
| Ctrl-n | same a down arrow |
| Ctrl-/ | undo: changes made to a previous command |
| Ctrl-[ | similar to Tab but not the same |
See Also[]
References[]