On 2024-08-10 15:50:55 +0100, Reuben Thomas wrote: > On Sat, 10 Aug 2024 at 10:03, Debian Bug Tracking System < > ow...@bugs.debian.org> wrote: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > From: Gioele Barabucci <gio...@svario.it> > > To: 708979-d...@bugs.debian.org > > Cc: > > Bcc: > > Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2024 11:01:07 +0200 > > Subject: Re: Bug#708979: bash (readline): Something is wrong with binding > > keys to functions > > Version: 5.2.21-2.1 > > > > On Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:11:20 +0100 Reuben Thomas <r...@sc3d.org> wrote: > > > In my .inputrc I have the following lines: > > > > > > "\M-n": history-search-forward > > > "\M-p": history-search-backward > > > "\C-u": kill-whole-line > > > > > > With readline 5.0 they work fine, but with 5.1 they don't work. > > > > this issue does not seem to affect version 5.2.21 of bash and > > libreadline8 version 8.2-4. > > Thank for looking into this issue! > > I just tried on my Bookworm system (bash 5.2.15-2+b7) and the bug > with \M-p and \M-n still seems present there.
For \M-p and \M-n, this may be a documentation inaccuracy. The readline(3readline) man page says An Emacs-style notation is used to denote keystrokes. Control keys are denoted by C-key, e.g., C-n means Control-N. Similarly, meta keys are denoted by M-key, so M-x means Meta-X. (On keyboards without a meta key, M-x means ESC x, i.e., press the Escape key then the x key. This makes ESC the meta prefix. The combination M-C-x means ESC-Control-x, or press the Escape key then hold the Control key while pressing the x key.) However, even if the keyboard has a Meta key, it has the effect to generate an Escape character, so that one should use the \e form in the .inputrc file. For instance, with "\ep": history-search-backward M-p does a history-search-backward with libreadline8 (I've tried with gp from the pari-gp package). I think that this is just a notation issue. In GNU Emacs, if I type ESC x, then M-x is displayed. Perhaps readline should make \M- equivalent to \e for the .inputrc file. The behavior is the same in bash. BTW, with the default bindings, "bind -p" shows only \e forms; there are no bindings with "\M-". And note that if I use "\M-p": history-search-backward in the .inputrc file, "bind -p" gives for this binding: "\360": history-search-backward This is the octal value of the ASCII code of the character "p" (\160) with the 8th bit set (→ \360). AFAIK, setting the 8th bit was an old, optional way the Meta key was behaving with xterm, but with the non-ASCII locales, this is now completely obsolete. -- Vincent Lefèvre <vinc...@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/> 100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/> Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)
