When bash Doesn't Have the Command You Need, Then There's chatGPT

🔧 Bash Tip: Delete from Cursor to Next Whitespace (Opposite of Ctrl+w)

By default, Bash (via readline) does not include a shortcut to delete from the cursor up to the next whitespace — only backward with Ctrl+w.

To fix that, you can create your own shortcut using bind -x and a bit of shell scripting. Here's how to do it, using Ctrl+o as the keybinding:

# ~/.bashrc or ~/.inputrc-compatible shell

# delete forward to next whitespace
delete_to_next_whitespace() {
  local line="${READLINE_LINE}"
  local pt=${READLINE_POINT}
  local rest="${line:pt}"
  local idx
  idx=$(expr index "$rest" ' ')
  if (( idx > 0 )); then
    READLINE_LINE="${line:0:pt}${rest:idx}"
  else
    READLINE_LINE="${line:0:pt}"
  fi
  READLINE_POINT=$pt
}

# Bind it to Ctrl+o (you can change this to any available combo)
bind -x '"\C-o": delete_to_next_whitespace'

🧠 How It Works

• READLINE_LINE: the entire current input line
• READLINE_POINT: the current cursor position
• expr index: finds the position of the first space
• The function trims out everything from the cursor up to (and including) that space

✅ Result

Once added to your ~/.bashrc and reloaded (source ~/.bashrc), hitting Ctrl+o will delete from the cursor to the next space.

⚠️ Why Not Use Alt+d?

The default Alt+d (kill-word) honors underscores, dashes, and slashes as part of a "word" — which makes it incompatible with the goal of trimming up to the next whitespace.

💡 Bonus Tip

If you want to treat tabs or multiple space types as separators, replace this line:

idx=$(expr index "$rest" ' ')

...with this one:

idx=$(expr match "$rest" '[^[:space:]]* *')

---

Tested on GNU Bash 5.2 with Emacs-style line editing (default). For vi mode users, this approach won't apply.

⚠️ What if You Want to Keep that Whitespace?

# ~/.bashrc or ~/.inputrc-compatible shell

# delete forward to next whitespace (keeping the space)
delete_to_next_whitespace() {
  local line="${READLINE_LINE}"
  local pt=${READLINE_POINT}
  local rest="${line:pt}"
  local idx
  idx=$(expr index "$rest" ' ')
  if (( idx > 0 )); then
    local keep="${rest:idx-1}"  # start *at* the whitespace
    READLINE_LINE="${line:0:pt}${keep}"
  else
    READLINE_LINE="${line:0:pt}"
  fi
  READLINE_POINT=$pt
}

# Bind it to Ctrl+o (you can change this to any available combo)
bind -x '"\C-o": delete_to_next_whitespace'

Boost Your bash Productivity with Alex Skorkin's Treasure Trove

DevExpress provides best-in-class UI controls for Blazor, WinForms ...

Unlock your terminal superpowers with these bash keyboard shortcuts—a curated list from Alan Skorkin’s classic post that every developer, sysadmin, or command-line ninja should know.

💡 Keyboard Shortcuts I Didn’t Know About

• Ctrl + K — Delete from cursor to end of command line
• Ctrl + U — Delete from cursor to start of command line
• Ctrl + W — Delete backwards one word
• Ctrl + Y — Paste text deleted by the most recent kill (yank)
• Ctrl + X, X — Toggle between cursor and start of command line
• Alt + B / Alt + F — Move backward/forward one word
• Alt + D — Delete from cursor to end of word
• Alt + C — Capitalize word and move cursor to end of it
• Alt + U — Uppercase from cursor to end of word
• Alt + L — Lowercase from cursor to end of word
• Alt + T — Swap current word with previous (SO COOL!)
• Alt + . — Insert last word of previous command

🧙‍♂️ Bash History Expansion Magic

• !blah:p — Print the command that !blah would run (without executing it)
• !* — Expand to all arguments from previous command (excluding command name)
• !!:s/foo/bar — Rerun the last command, but substitute foo with bar

📘 Bonus: Tips from the Linux Foundation’s EDX Course

More terminal wizardry from this_

📘 But wait, what if bash doesn't have the command you need?

That's when you turn to the solution from the oracle. Example? I want to delete from cursor to next whitespace.