Editor commands (+)

`bindkey' lists key bindings and `bindkey -l' lists and briefly describes editor commands. Only new or especially interesting editor commands are described here. See emacs(1) and vi(1) for descriptions of each editor's key bindings.

The character or characters to which each command is bound by default is given in parentheses. `^character' means a control character and `M-character' a meta character, typed as escape-character on terminals without a meta key. Case counts, but commands which are bound to letters by default are bound to both lower- and uppercase letters for convenience.

complete-word (tab): Completes a word as described under Completion and listing.
complete-word-back (not bound): Like complete-word-fwd, but steps up from the end of the list.
complete-word-fwd (not bound): Replaces the current word with the first word in the list of possible completions. May be repeated to step down through the list. At the end of the list, beeps and reverts to the incomplete word.
complete-word-raw (^X-tab): Like complete-word, but ignores user-defined completions.
copy-prev-word (M-^_): Copies the previous word in the current line into the input buffer. See also insert-last-word.
dabbrev-expand (M-/): Expands the current word to the most recent preceding one for which the current is a leading substring, wrapping around the history list (once) if necessary. Repeating dabbrev-expand without any intervening typing changes to the next previous word etc., skipping identical matches much like history-search-backward does.
delete-char (not bound): Deletes the character under the cursor. See also delete-char-or-list-or-eof.
delete-char-or-eof (not bound): Does delete-char if there is a character under the cursor or end-of-file on an empty line. See also delete-char-or-list-or-eof.
delete-char-or-list (not bound): Does delete-char if there is a character under the cursor or list-choices at the end of the line. See also delete-char-or-list-or-eof.
delete-char-or-list-or-eof (^D): Does delete-char if there is a character under the cursor, list-choices at the end of the line or end-of-file on an empty line. See also those three commands, each of which only does a single action, and delete-char-or-eof, delete-char-or-list and list-or-eof, each of which does a different two out of the three.
down-history (down-arrow, ^N): Like up-history, but steps down, stopping at the original input line.
end-of-file (not bound): Signals an end of file, causing the shell to exit unless the ignoreeof shell variable (q.v.) is set to prevent this. See also delete-char-or-list-or-eof.
expand-history (M-space): Expands history substitutions in the current word. See History substitution. See also magic-space, toggle-literal-history and the autoexpand shell variable.
expand-glob (^X-*): Expands the glob-pattern to the left of the cursor. See Filename substitution.
expand-line (not bound): Like expand-history, but expands history substitutions in each word in the input buffer,
expand-variables (^X-$): Expands the variable to the left of the cursor. See Variable substitution.
history-search-backward (M-p, M-P): Searches backwards through the history list for a command beginning with the current contents of the input buffer up to the cursor and copies it into the input buffer. The search string may be a glob-pattern (see Filename substitution) containing `*', `?', `[]' or `{}'. up-history and down-history will proceed from the appropriate point in the history list. Emacs mode only. See also history-search-forward and i-search-back.
history-search-forward (M-n, M-N): Like history-search-backward, but searches forward.
i-search-back (not bound): Searches backward like history-search-backward, copies the first match into the input buffer with the cursor positioned at the end of the pattern, and prompts with `bck: ' and the first match. Additional characters may be typed to extend the search, i-search-back may be typed to continue searching with the same pattern, wrapping around the history list if necessary, (i-search-back must be bound to a single character for this to work) or one of the following special characters may be typed:

^W: Appends the rest of the word under the cursor to the search pattern.
delete (or any character bound to backward-delete-char): Undoes the effect of the last character typed and deletes a character from the search pattern if appropriate.
^G: If the previous search was successful, aborts the entire search. If not, goes back to the last successful search.
escape: Ends the search, leaving the current line in the input buffer.

Any other character not bound to self-insert-command terminates the search, leaving the current line in the input buffer, and is then interpreted as normal input. In particular, a carriage return causes the current line to be executed. Emacs mode only. See also i-search-fwd and history-search-backward.

i-search-fwd (not bound): Like i-search-back, but searches forward.
insert-last-word (M-_): Inserts the last word of the previous input line (`!$') into the input buffer. See also copy-prev-word.
list-choices (M-^D): Lists completion possibilities as described under Completion and listing. See also delete-char-or-list-or-eof and list-choices-raw.
list-choices-raw (^X-^D): Like list-choices, but ignores user-defined completions.
list-glob (^X-g, ^X-G): Lists (via the ls-F builtin) matches to the glob-pattern (see Filename substitution) to the left of the cursor.
list-or-eof (not bound): Does list-choices or end-of-file on an empty line. See also delete-char-or-list-or-eof.
magic-space (not bound): Expands history substitutions in the current line, like expand-history, and appends a space. magic-space is designed to be bound to the spacebar, but is not bound by default.
normalize-command (^X-?): Searches for the current word in PATH and, if it is found, replaces it with the full path to the executable. Special characters are quoted. Aliases are expanded and quoted but commands within aliases are not. This command is useful with commands which take commands as arguments, e.g. `dbx' and `sh -x'.
normalize-path (^X-n, ^X-N): Expands the current word as described under the `expand' setting of the symlinks shell variable.
overwrite-mode (unbound): Toggles between input and overwrite modes.
run-fg-editor (M-^Z): Saves the current input line and looks for a stopped job with a name equal to the last component of the file name part of the EDITOR or VISUAL environment variables, or, if neither is set, `ed' or `vi'. If such a job is found, it is restarted as if `fg %job' had been typed. This is used to toggle back and forth between an editor and the shell easily. Some people bind this command to `^Z' so they can do this even more easily.
run-help (M-h, M-H): Searches for documentation on the current command, using the same notion of `current command' as the completion routines, and prints it. There is no way to use a pager; run-help is designed for short help files. Documentation should be in a file named command.help, command.1, command.6, command.8 or command, which should be in one of the directories listed in the HPATH enviroment variable. If there is more than one help file only the first is printed.
self-insert-command (text characters): In insert mode (the default), inserts the typed character into the input line after the character under the cursor. In overwrite mode, replaces the character under the cursor with the typed character. The input mode is normally preserved between lines, but the inputmode shell variable can be set to `insert' or `overwrite' to put the editor in that mode at the beginning of each line. See also overwrite-mode.
sequence-lead-in (arrow prefix, meta prefix, ^X): Indicates that the following characters are part of a multi-key sequence. Binding a command to a multi-key sequence really creates two bindings: the first character to sequence-lead-in and the whole sequence to the command. All sequences beginning with a character bound to sequence-lead-in are effectively bound to undefined-key unless bound to another command.
spell-line (M-$): Attempts to correct the spelling of each word in the input buffer, like spell-word, but ignores words whose first character is one of `-', `!', `^' or `%', or which contain `\', `*' or `?', to avoid problems with switches, substitutions and the like. See Spelling correction.
spell-word (M-s, M-S): Attempts to correct the spelling of the current word as described under Spelling correction. Checks each component of a word which appears to be a pathname.
toggle-literal-history (M-r, M-R): Expands or `unexpands' history substitutions in the input buffer. See also expand-history and the autoexpand shell variable.
undefined-key (any unbound key): Beeps.
up-history (up-arrow, ^P): Copies the previous entry in the history list into the input buffer. If histlit is set, uses the literal form of the entry. May be repeated to step up through the history list, stopping at the top.
vi-search-back (?): Prompts with `?' for a search string (which may be a glob-pattern, as with history-search-backward), searches for it and copies it into the input buffer. The bell rings if no match is found. Hitting return ends the search and leaves the last match in the input buffer. Hitting escape ends the search and executes the match. vi mode only.
vi-search-fwd (/): Like vi-search-back, but searches forward.
which-command (M-?): Does a which (see the description of the builtin command) on the first word of the input buffer.

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