Bash: call script with customized keyboard shortcuts?

Question

Lets say I have a script, \"myscript.sh\", with contents being simply echo $PWD. I\'d like to bind somehow this script to a key combo in bash

Answer 1

Simple version:

This command at a shell prompt:

bind '"\ee": "${PWD##*/}\e\C-e"'

or this line added to your ~/.inputrc:

"\ee": "${PWD##*/}\e\C-e"

will cause Alt-e to insert the basename of the current directory on the command line. It requires that the default binding of the readline function shell-expand-line which is \e\C-e be present (this could be adapted if it's different). I'm also making the assumption that you're using Bash's emacs mode.

Unfortunately, it causes things that have already been typed to be expanded as well. One of the affects of this is that after having typed:

svn ci -m "

and pressing Alt-e, the quotation mark will have disappeared. There are a couple of ways to deal with this.

One, assume that all you'll lose is the quote and either manually add it back or have the readline macro add it for you:

bind '"\ee": "${PWD##*/}\e\C-e\eb\"\C-e"'

which just isn't very satisfactory.

Advanced version:

Or, two, kill the line, do the insertion, then yank the line back:

bind '"\ee": " \C-u \C-a\C-k${PWD##*/}\e\C-e\C-y\C-a\C-y\ey\b"'

or

bind '"\ee": " \C-u \C-a\C-k${PWD##*/}\e\C-e\C-y\C-a\C-y\ey\b\ef\C-f"'

This leaves the rest of the line intact (nothing else is expanded or deleted), but it uses the kill ring, so it may leave it in a state that's different than you expect (if you're using it). It also inserts a space after the inserted directory name (the spaces in the macro are used to ensure that older kill-ring contents are not regurgitated if the macro is executed at the beginning or end of the line). The macro should work regardless of the position of the cursor in the line. The insertion will be made at the cursor's position, leaving the cursor in the same position [in the first version].

Edit: The second version leaves the cursor after the dirname and space that are inserted.

Edit 2:

The readline function shell-forward-word (unbound) does a better job than forward-word (\ef) for this. You can make use of that like this:

bind '"\ew":shell-forward-word'
bind '"\ee": " \C-u \C-a\C-k${PWD##*/}\e\C-e\C-y\C-a\C-y\ey\b\ew\C-f"'

By the way, you should know that Bash keyboard shortcuts are not active in other programs such as nano.