GNU Readline Library. Node: Readline Killing Commands

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1.2.3: Readline Killing Commands

Killing text means to delete the text from the line, but to save it away for later use, usually by yanking (re-inserting) it back into the line. If the description for a command says that it `kills' text, then you can be sure that you can get the text back in a different (or the same) place later.

When you use a kill command, the text is saved in a kill-ring. Any number of consecutive kills save all of the killed text together, so that when you yank it back, you get it all. The kill ring is not line specific; the text that you killed on a previously typed line is available to be yanked back later, when you are typing another line.

Here is the list of commands for killing text.

C-K

Kill the text from the current cursor position to the end of the line.

M-D

Kill from the cursor to the end of the current word, or if between words, to the end of the next word.

M-DEL

Kill from the cursor the start of the previous word, or if between words, to the start of the previous word.

C-W

Kill from the cursor to the previous whitespace. This is different than M-DEL because the word boundaries differ.

Here is how to yank the text back into the line. Yanking means to copy the most-recently-killed text from the kill buffer.

C-Y

Yank the most recently killed text back into the buffer at the cursor.

M-Y

Rotate the kill-ring, and yank the new top. You can only do this if the prior command is C-Y or M-Y.

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