vi style key binding for bash.

Bash supports both emap and vi style key binding. emacs is a default keybinding. Users need to use "set -o vi" to switch to vi style binding. I have the carpel tunnel type of problem so I always use vi style binding. In bash, I want to have multi-key binding e.g "th" bind to history command, t1 to last command's 1st argument etc. Frankly speaking, I didn't like the bash vi binding syntax. It is very cryptic and possibly very error prone. Here are my bindings :

te : Print this help
tl : listing files in current directory(run ls command)
th : show history of last 8 commands
t0-t9 : last command arguments 0-9
tt : Last command's all argument
tk : Don't run(kill) the current command but save it in history.
tr : reverse-search-history but conituation must be done by C-r
tc : Equivalent to ctrl-c. kill line and go to input mode
tw : next word
tq : history with shortcut macro
ts : print history to execute command
ty : Change editor : For internal use only
tx : Execute perl expression on current statement
z  : vi-search-again
g : goto mark

How it works :
$ <Esc>te
The above will print the help.
$ ls .bash_keybinding.sh
$ vi <Esc>t1
will expand to
$ vi .bash_keybinding.sh

$ vi <Esc>tq
will show last 25 commands
25 ----> gvim(qp0) dtraceno-op.txt(qp1)
24 ----> cd(qo0) ../books/(qo1)
23 ----> ls(qn0)
22 ----> cd(qm0) solaris(qm1)
20 ----> ls(qk0) -l(qk1)
19 ----> kpdf(qj0) solarispkg.pdf(qj1)
18 ----> kpdf(qi0) solarispkg.pdf(qi1)
16 ----> cd(qg0) ..(qg1)
14 ----> kpdf(qe0) dtrace.pdf(qe1)
12 ----> cd(qc0) ../blogs/(qc1)
9 ----> ls(q90) *.html(q91)
7 ----> cvs(q70) add(q71) dtraceno-op.html(q72)
6 ----> cvs(q60) commit(q61)
5 ----> cd(q50) ~/bin/(q51)
2 ----> gvim(q20) .bash_keybinding.sh(q21)
1 ----> ls(q10) .bash_keybinding.sh(q11)
$ vi <Esc>qi1
will expand to
$ vi solarispkg.pdf

Basically "tq" command generates 25 line history and bound their arguments with "qxx" keys.

Syntax of bash key binding command is horrible. Suppose I want to bind "tc" to Ctrl-C, here is the bind command, I need to use.
bind -m vi-command '"\x74\x63"':"\"\C-a\C-K\""

For a complicated set of operations, I wrote a perl script bashhelper.pl. Here
is how "tq" is bound:
bind -m vi-command -x '"tq":"history 25 | perl $bashhelper --leader q --format-history"'

Here are files for complete reference :
.bash_keybinding.sh
bashhelper.pl

Posted at 06:31PM Jul 30, 2008 by Basant Kukreja in technical  |  Comments[0]