How to expand * on bash command line

Question

I'm sure I've seen this before but I might have been mistaken.

I understand that if you type ls * it is actually expanded to ls a b c assuming the current directly has files a, b and c.

I was wonder if there was a way to expand this before I hit enter. Similar to how Ctrl+X works, or tab complete works.

So to make myself clear

$ ls *
<press magic key>
$ ls a b c

in a similar way to:

$ ls ~/
<press tab>
$ ls /home/username

thanks

Answer 1

You can use the glob-expand-word function, from man bash:

The word before point is treated as a pattern for pathname
expansion, and the list of matching file names is inserted,
replacing the word. If a numeric argument is supplied, an
asterisk is appended before pathname expansion.

Add something like this to your ~/.inputrc:

Control-x: glob-expand-word

So $ ls * followed by Ctrl-X will expand to $ ls a b c, in your example.

Answer 2

In bash, the readline capability is called glob-expand-word and is bound to CtrlX* by default.

Answer 3

As a side note, under zsh the key would be Tab

Answer 4

When you are in vi mode (set -o vi), the "magic key" is Esc*. This works with both bash and ksh.

PS: how you guys insert these nice looking keycaps with the editor ?