back space erases whole term on command line

sharky · 04-24-2009, 12:14 PM

Have a problem with backspace on the command line. It backspaces over entire terms instead of single characters

Lets say I enter 'cd /home/$USER/.d5' when I meant to enter 'cd /home/$USER/.dt'. If I hit the backspace button to correct the last character everything is erased except the 'cd'. I have to retype the whole path and keep doing it until it's perfect. If I accidentally hit the backspace more than once it continues erasing whole terms rather than single characters.

Is there a way to turn off this 'feature'?

MensaWater · 04-24-2009, 02:32 PM

Hit Ctrl-v (hold down ctrl key then hit v). Then hit the backspace key. What you see should be the code the backspace key is sending. (Typically it is ^? or ^H).

Then type "stty -a" and see what "erase=" shows to determine if it matches.

If not then type "stty erase" and hit your backspace key - that should set it to match. You can hit stty -a afterwards to verify it.

Of course this assumes you're not using incorrect TERM value (echo $TERM to se that) or haven't done some odd mapping manually.

sharky · 04-24-2009, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlightner

Hit Ctrl-v (hold down ctrl key then hit v). Then hit the backspace key. What you see should be the code the backspace key is sending. (Typically it is ^? or ^H).

Then type "stty -a" and see what "erase=" shows to determine if it matches.

If not then type "stty erase" and hit your backspace key - that should set it to match. You can hit stty -a afterwards to verify it.

Of course this assumes you're not using incorrect TERM value (echo $TERM to se that) or haven't done some odd mapping manually.

Thanks for the response.

Ctrl-v backspace returns ^?

partial return of stty -a:

Quote:

.
intr = ^c; quit = ^\; erase = ^h; kill = ^u;
rprnt = ^r; flush = ^o; werase = ^?; lnext = ^v;

$TERM is set to xterm.

If I enter 'stty erase' and then hit the backspace key it simply erases 'erase' on the command line. No change is affected.

amani · 04-24-2009, 06:22 PM

Mention distro and shell.
Otherwise things will not be clear.

sharky · 04-27-2009, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amani

Mention distro and shell.
Otherwise things will not be clear.

Not a distro. It's Solaris. The shell is csh. Just discover that if I invoke tcsh the issues vanish. That might be the easiest workaround.