# Terminal Shortcuts
## Default shortcuts
For Ubuntu's default keybinding settings (i.e Emacs keybindings)
### Insert previous arguments
- Alt+.: insert last argument from last command.
- Alt+number+.: insert #nth last argument from last command.
- Alt+- , number , Alt+., **zsh:** Alt+-+number+.: insert #nth first argument from last command.
In Linux you can repeat commands to go back in history
#### Example
Last command is:
mv foo bar
- Alt+0+.: insert first argument of last command = `mv`
- Alt+2+.: insert last 2nd argument of last command = `foo`
- up , Ctrl+w: last command without the last word = `mv foo`
### Cut/Paste commands
(relative to cursor's position)
- Ctrl+w: cuts last word
- Alt+d: cuts next word
- Ctrl+k: cuts everything after
- Ctrl+u, **zsh:** Alt+w: cuts everything before
- **zsh:** Ctrl+u: cuts the entire command *(In bash you can combine Ctrl+u , Ctrl+k)*
- Ctrl+y: paste characters previously cut with any **Cut command**. *In bash you can chain **cut commands**, and Ctrl+y will paste them all.*
### Move cursor
- Ctrl+left: move to last word
- Ctrl+right: move to next word
- home or Ctrl+a: move to start of command
- end or Ctrl+e: move to end of command
### Other
- Ctrl+_: undo last edit *(very useful when exceeding Ctrl+w)*
### To see all shortcuts available
- **bash:** `bind -lp`
- **zsh:** `bindkey -L`
## Custom shortcuts
### Iterate through arguments
only works in zsh, and probably only Linux
#### Description
Insert any argument of a previous command by iterating one by one until selection
#### Setup Instructions
run this:
autoload -Uz copy-earlier-word
zle -N copy-earlier-word
bindkey "^[:" copy-earlier-word
*(to make this permanent, add it to your `~/.zshrc` and restart shell)*
Now use Alt+. to go as back as you want, then use Alt+: to iterate through the arguments
#### Example
Last command is
echo 1 2 3 4 5
- Alt+.: `5`
- Alt+.+:: `4`
- Alt+.+:+:: `3`
- Alt+.+:+:+:: `2`
- Alt+.+:+:+:+:: `1`
- Alt+.+:+:+:+:+:: `echo`
source:
## Other examples
### Common usecases
Let's consider the last command to be:
mv foo bar
up , Ctrl+w: last command without the last word = `mv foo`
Alt+0+.: first argument of last command = `mv`
## Limitations
"words" only includes `a-zA-Z` characters, so any symbol character will stop word-shortcuts.
So if last argument was a url and you want to erase it with Ctrl+w it will be a pain.
E.g: `curl -I --header "Connection: Keep-Alive" https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38176514/re-run-previous-command-with-different-arguments`
To erase that **url** using Ctrl+w, you'd have to repeat it 12 times.
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It would be great to have similar shortcuts that only stops at the **space character**