bash Cookbook

Adjusting readline Behavior Using .inputrc

Problem

You’d like to adjust the way bash handles input, especially command completion. For example, you’d like it to be case-insensitive.

Solution

Edit or create a ~/.inputrc or /etc/inputrc file as appropriate. There are many parameters you can adjust to your liking. To have readline use your file when it initializes, set $INPUTRC; for example, set INPUTRC='~/.inputrc'. To re-read the file and apply or test after making changes, use bind-f filename.

We recommend you explore the bind command and the readline documentation, especially bind -v, bind -l, bind -s, and bind -p, though the last one is rather long and cryptic.

Some useful settings for users from other environments, notably Windows, are (see the section “Readline Init File Syntax” in Appendix A):

# settings/inputrc: # readline settings # To re-read (and implement changes to this file) use: # bind -f $SETTINGS/inputrc # First, include any systemwide bindings and variable # assignments from /etc/inputrc # (fails silently if file doesn't exist) $include /etc/inputrc $if Bash # Ignore case when doing completion set completion-ignore-case on # Completed dir names have a slash appended set mark-directories on # Completed names which are symlinks to dirs have a slash appended set mark-symlinked-directories on # List ls -F for completion set visible-stats on # Cycle through ambiguous completions instead of list "\C-i": menu-complete # Set bell to audible set bell-style audible # List possible ...