Unix Keyboard Shortcuts

This site is dedicated to document how to make the traditional Unix terminal text editing shortcuts in other environments. If you have any corrections or information on how to setup or enable Unix key bindings on more environments, please contact me.

Shortcut Cheat Sheet

• ^U -> Delete from cursor to start of line.
• ^W -> Delete word before the cursor.
• ^H -> Delete character before the cursor.
• ^A -> Move cursor to start of the line.
• ^E -> Move cursor to end of the line.

(In Unix ‘^’ means the Control key.)

FAQ

• Question: Aren’t this Emacs keybindings?
• Answer: No, they are not. Even vi(update: only partially and only in insert mode, *bleh*), sam and acme implement them!
• Q: So where do this bindings come from?
• A: Rob Pike answers in 9fans: “I believe ^H ^W ^U date back at least to TENEX.” (TENEX was the TOPS-20 operating system, the second proprietary OS by DEC for the PDP-10)
• Q: Does this mean the title of this page is a misnomer?
• A: Probably, although the intended audience are people faimiliar with the classic Unix environment, so it is not completely wrong.