bashrc - how to disable `alt-numkey` in bash shell

07
2014-07
  • Cody Hess

    I can bounce between apps in Chrome OS by pressing alt-N, where N is the position of my app on the status bar. Useful!

    But when I'm in the bash shell of my Nitrous.io box, pressing alt-N to bounce to a different app gives bash a command: (arg: N).

    What does the (arg: N) command do in bash? A five minute search taught me plenty of hotkeys, but none with alt + number key.

    And can I disable it?

    • Answers
  • Dmitry Alexandrov

    You can remove them in an exactly same way as any other shortcut – with bind -r

    for i in "-" {0..9}; do bind -r "\e$i"; done

    If you hate loops, you may do it manually:

    bind -r '\e-'
bind -r '\e0'
bind -r '\e1'
bind -r '\e2'
bind -r '\e3'
bind -r '\e4'
bind -r '\e5'
bind -r '\e6'
bind -r '\e7'
bind -r '\e8'
bind -r '\e9'

    If you do not want this modifiers not only in Bash sessions but everywhere where GNU Readline provides them, add the following lines not in your .bashrc but in your .inputrc:

    "\e-"
"\e0"
"\e1"
"\e2"
"\e3"
"\e4"
"\e5"
"\e6"
"\e7"
"\e8"
"\e9"

    (Yes, just list them).

  • Bruno9779

    This question has been previously asked on stackoverflow:

    http://stackoverflow.com/questions/562115/press-alt-numeric-in-bash-and-you-get-arg-numeric-what-is-that

    It was the first result I got in google for "bash alt+number", hence I downvoted the question.


    • Related Question

    Bash readline blink-matching-paren not blinking matching parentheses
  • Dennis Williamson

    Bash readline has a setting called blink-matching-paren that is not working for me. If I type an open parenthesis on the command line, then some text, then a close parenthesis I don't get any blinking. Parentheses matching does work for me in vim and emacs -nw.

    Here are the settings and versions, etc.:

    $ bind -v | grep blink-matching-paren
set blink-matching-paren on
$ set -o | grep -E '\<(emacs|vi)\>'
emacs           on
vi              off

    Various combinations of:

    • Bash 4.0.33(1)-release
    • Bash 4.1.9(2)-release
    • Bash 3.2.51(24)-release
    • mintty 0.9.2
    • PuTTY 0.60 (with and without "Enable Blinking Text")
    • xterm 243
    • gnome-terminal 2.28.1
    • TERM=xterm
    • TERM=xterm-256color

    What do I need to do to make parentheses matching work in Bash on the command line?


    • Related Answers
  • whitequark

    Try setting that in .inputrc, like:

    $ cat ~/.inputrc
set blink-matching-paren on

    Somehow this setting does not work for me when set interactively, but works fine that way.