Control-Backspace (unix-kill-rubout) for readline?

Question

In readline(3) I should be able to map Control-Backspace to the same function as Control-W (unix-kill-rubout). Regardless of what I put in ~/.inputrc I'm unable to get this to be recognized.

\C-\b: unix-kill-rubout

...for instance does not work. Can I map Control-Backspace to the unix-kill-rubout in readline?

Answer 1

Are you looking for unix-word-rubout or kill-word ? I don't think unix-kill-word exists.

Answer 2

• Assuming you use gnome-terminal, this would require a patch.
• For konsole, you need a configuration change.
• For xterm (maybe urxvt has something similar), another configuration change.

Answer 3

I doubt your terminal will send a special code for ctrl-backspace. Backspace is normally ctrl-?, and you can't add another ctrl modifier to a ctrl character.

One alternative might be to have your terminal send a special escape sequence for Ctrl-Backspace, then map that in your readline config.

Answer 4

For the linux terminal, you can do it by modifying the keymap you load on startup. In ubuntu my default it loads /etc/console-setup/cached.kmap.gz. If you find the entry corresponding to Ctrl-Backspace (probably Control-Delete is listed as Backspace already) then you could change that to Control_w. Not sure about terminal emulators, but konsole (the default KDE terminal emulator) has quite nice settings for keybinds. Hope that helps :)

Chris

Answer 5

This works for me (in urxvt, bash):

"\b":backward-kill-word