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hpr4372 :: The power of GNU Readline - part 4

Sgoti talks about Vi settings in GNU Readline

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Hosted by Some Guy On The Internet on Tuesday, 2025-05-06 is flagged as Clean and is released under a CC-BY-SA license.
GNU Readline, Vi mode. 2.

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Duration: 00:11:26
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GNU Readline.

GNU Readline is a software library that provides line-editing and history capabilities for interactive programs with a command-line interface, such as Bash. It is currently maintained by Chet Ramey as part of the GNU Project. This series looks at some of the features of this powerful library.

Prerequisites are:

Novice level.

  • Backup(s) of ALL your data.
  • Confirm backup data works as desired.

Intermediate/Experienced level.

  • Understanding of *unix operating system.
  • Terminal use (without the need to immediately restore from backups) .

Expert Level.

  • How to exit vim.

Resources

Comments

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Comment #1 posted on 2025-05-09 11:02:50 by Torin Doyle

SGOTI is so likeable.

I always like hearing SGOTI. It's great how he drops in the odd laugh. He'd put just about anyone in a good mood.

Comment #2 posted on 2025-05-17 19:42:14 by Dave Morriss

VI Mode

Thanks for this. Excellent show.

The VI mode has been in Readline forever, but I don't use it, even though I use Vim every day. You made me ask myself "why?".

I think that when I first learnt about Readline, which was mainly on Unix (Ultrix, SunOS, and others) in the early 1990's, the VI interface wasn't as comprehensive as it is now. So I went with the Emacs mode. It's a long while ago, and I may be wrong.

Anyway, your description of this aspect of Readline makes me want to enable VI mode :-)

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