Is it possible to (re)define what readline (embedded in bash) defines as a word?

Question

Many of the special Readline constructs allow the user to edit the command line in various ways. For instance, certain keystrokes allow moving forward a word. A word is defined to be what bash itself defines it to be.

Is it possible to set bash parameter(s) so that Readline defines a word to be something different other than what bash normally defines it to be? Say, any sequence of non-whitespace characters?

No, but in bash, you can define functions that behave like readline's except for a different notion of word. — Gilles 'SO- stop being evil', Dec 04 '14 at 23:27

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 04 '14 at 11:26

2

As far as I know, the definition what is a word depends on the current locale settings.

The readline man page (bash uses readline for input handling) says:

Words are composed of alphanumeric characters (letters and digits).

answered Dec 04 '14 at 11:26

jofel

26,758

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 30 '14 at 22:05

-1

Bash splits words by the $IFS variable, see https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Word-Splitting.html.

Note, that word selection (i.e. by doubleclicking the word) is configured in your terminal's settings.

answered Dec 30 '14 at 22:05

allo

946
1
7
14

That is not the same way Readline splits words. For example, backward-word will move to a hyphen within a word, but that's not part of IFS. – l0b0 Apr 16 '20 at 23:49

Is it possible to (re)define what readline (embedded in bash) defines as a word?

2 Answers2