[SOLVED] What's an easy way to edit a multiline bash command?

Hello there :)

As far as I know (searched through the web), editing/navigating a multiline in bash is not possible and opening nano, pasting and editing is to much friction I want to get rid off.

Do you have any way to speed up the process?

example of multiline:

echo \
"deb [arch="$(dpkg --print-architecture)" signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \
"$(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME")" stable" | \
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

Thank you :)

4 points · 15 comments · view on lemmy.world

15 Comments

parasrah@lemmy.parasrah.com · 7 pts · 3y (2 replies)

You can use C-x C-e in bash to open the current line in $EDITOR and edit it there. Much faster than copying and pasting :)

INeedMana@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3y

Wow! I've never heard about this.

For zsh: not mine gist to enable it

deepdive@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3y

Thank you :) Helps alot !!

taaz@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 3y (1 reply)

Ctrl+x Ctrl+e

deepdive@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3y

Hey :) Thank you !! That's not exactly what I hoped for but it does the trick very smoothly !!!!

gartheom@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 3y (1 reply)

As soon as a bash command gets to multiple lines, i save it as a bash script and then edit it in a text editor.

deepdive@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3y

Thank you for your response :) But that's actually what I don't want to do...

It’s not about looking pretty, I like to navigate freely like CTRL-E, CTRL-A, ALT-B, ALT-F… speeds up the process and is frictionless (like your link suggests it :P). Sometimes I copy/past an already written command in the CLI with multilines and not being able to navigate thourgh them is frustrating !

3nt3r@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3y (1 reply)

Personally if its just a bash command then I dont bother with formatting and just do one-liners. If I want it to look pretty then I’ll put it in a script. If I need to edit something you can use shortcuts like these to jump around the command line to edit whatever you need

deepdive@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3y

Hey, thank you for your response :)

It's not about looking pretty, I like to navigate freely like CTRL-E, CTRL-A, ALT-B, ALT-F... speeds up the process and is frictionless (like your link suggests it :P). Sometimes I copy/past an already written command in the CLI with multilines and not being able to navigate thourgh them is frustrating !

nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev · 2 pts · 3y (3 replies)

You can use the emacs shortcuts to navigate quickly, jump forward or backwards over words or to the start or end of a line.

deepdive@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3y (2 replies)

Hey thank you :) I didn't knew these shortcuts where called emacs ! As @taaz said Ctrl+x Ctrl-e is probably the best I will get.

nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev · 1 pts · 3y (1 reply)

Ctrl-A (jump to beginning of line)
Ctrl-E (jump to end of line)
Ctrl-W (delete word)
Alt-F (jump one word forward)
Alt-B (jump one word back)

These get me most of the way around.

It also depends on your terminal emulator. For instance on my Mac I've mapped the above to the typical keybinds (alt-left, alt-right, ctrl-backspace)

deepdive@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3y

Thank you :) My question was maybe a bit confusing (not native :( ) and yes I know those EMACs shortcuts to navigate around :). It was relate to how to navigate a multiline in a copy/pasted command in the shell. The solution is (even if it wasn't what I expected) to Ctrl-x Ctrl-e, this opens an editor with my copied command. This is one more step, but it's elgant and takes away the fritction from opening nano myself !

Thank you for your contribution !

PopOfAfrica@lemmy.one · 1 pts · 3y (2 replies)

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deepdive@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3y (1 reply)

Thank you for your insight ! :)) I'm relatively new to linux (ubuntu/debian) and this will probably commin handy in the future :). As I read on the web it's going to replace the X Window System. Something new to read through and learn !

PopOfAfrica@lemmy.one · 2 pts · 3y

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