News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Keyboard Shortcuts every Command Line Hacker should know about GNU Readline. Parent comment

Re:Keyboard Shortcuts every Command Line Hacker should know ... by alexdme on Tuesday November 29, 2022 @01:38PM (#33791379)
In this file `~` is meta (option key on macs). Not sure why it's not escape like it is in emacs.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Keyboard Shortcuts every Command Line Hacker should know ... by dotancohen on Tuesday November 29, 2022 @04:29PM (#33793586)
On Linux, Meta is activated on modern keyboards by both ESC and ALT.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Keyboard Shortcuts every Command Line Hacker should know ... by Jtsummers on Tuesday November 29, 2022 @04:58PM (#33793947)
Also on macOS and (at least within emacs) Windows.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Keyboard Shortcuts every Command Line Hacker should know ... by a1369209993 on Tuesday November 29, 2022 @08:19PM (#33795706)
Because on a particular three/four-decade-old physical terminal[0], Alt-$KEY was transmitted as "1B [sequence for $KEY]". Eg, Alt-X was "1B 58"[1]. The escape key happened to also transmit "1B" on its own. Consequently, "Alt-$KEY" and "Esc, $KEY" were indistinguishable unless you went out of your way to engineer a race condition. This has never really been fixed, despite intermittent attempts.

0: I think VT100, but don't quote me on that

1: or possibly "1B 78", depending on how it handled shift; I don't remember exactly.

[ Parent | on HN ]