Getting efficient with Readline

GNU Readline is a utility used by different programs to have a consistent command-line interface.
A few of these programs :

• Bash (zsh does not use readline)
• some Python interactive interpreters
• rlwrap

By default, the end user interface of readline comes with really interesting keybindings. They are documented but the page layout is not really user-friendly so here's a summary :

Type	Name	Emacs shortcut	Action	Object	Direction	Equivalent Windows/Gnome/KDE
Mode	emacs-editing-mode	^ Ctrl+e	Change	mode	from vi to emacs (set -o emacs)
	vi-editing-mode	^ Ctrl+⎇ Alt+j	Change	mode	from emacs to vi (set -o vi)
Move	backward-char	^ Ctrl+b	Move the cursor	one character	to the left	←
	forward-char	^ Ctrl+f	Move the cursor	one character	to the right	→
	backward-word	⎇ Alt+b	Move the cursor	one word	to the left	^ Ctrl+←
	forward-word	⎇ Alt+f	Move the cursor	one word	to the right	^ Ctrl+→
	beginning-of-line	^ Ctrl+a	Move the cursor		to the start of the line
	end-of-line	^ Ctrl+e	Move the cursor		to the end of the line
	exchange-point-and-mark	^ Ctrl+x ^ Ctrl+x	Move the cursor		to the start of the line/to original position
Swap	transpose-char	^ Ctrl+t	Swap	the character	before the cursor with current position
	transpose-word	⎇ Alt+t	Swap	the word	before the cursor with current word
Search	character-search	^ Ctrl+]	Search	the character	and move to next occurence
	character-search-backward	^ Ctrl+⎇ Alt+]	Search	the word	and move to previous occurence
Case	downcase-word	⎇ Alt+l	Lowercase	the word	from cursor
	upcase-word	⎇ Alt+u	Uppercase	the word	from cursor
	capitalize-word	⎇ Alt+c	Capitalize	the word	from cursor
Kill	delete-char	^ Ctrl+d	Delete	the character
	unix-word-rubout	^ Ctrl+w	Delete	the word	left until after the previous word boundary
	backward-kill-word	⎇ Alt+⌫ Backspace	Delete	the word
	kill-word	⎇ Alt+d	Delete	the word	right until before the next word boundary
	unix-line-discard	^ Ctrl+u	Delete	everything	from the cursor to the start of the line
	kill-line	^ Ctrl+k	Delete	everything	from the cursor to the end of the line
Yank	yank	^ Ctrl+y	Yank	the kill ring	at point
	yank-pop	⎇ Alt+y	Yank	the kill ring	at point (going through older content)
Undo	undo	^ Ctrl+_ (or ^ Ctrl+x ^ Ctrl+u)	Undo	last change
	revert-line	⎇ Alt+r	Undo	all changes	made to this line
Completion	complete	↹ Tab	Attempt completion
	possible-completions	⎇ Alt+?	List completions
	insert-completions	⎇ Alt+*	Insert completions
History	previous-history	^ Ctrl+p	Move in history	one line	up
	next-history	^ Ctrl+n	Move in history	one line	down
	beginning-of-history	⎇ Alt+<	Move in history	all lines	to the top
	end-of-history	⎇ Alt+>	Move in history	all lines	to the bottom
	reverse-search-history	^ Ctrl+r	Incremental search		backward, going up the history
	forward-search-history	^ Ctrl+s	Incremental search		forward, going down the history
		^ Ctrl+j	Stop	incremental search
	abort	^ Ctrl+g	Stop	incremental search	and restore original line
	non-incremental-reverse-search-history	⎇ Alt+p	Non-incremental search		backward, going up the history
	non-incremental-forward-search-history	⎇ Alt+n	Non-incremental search		forward, going down the history
	yank-nth-arg	^ Ctrl+⎇ Alt+y	Yank	first argument	of the previous command
	yank-last-arg	⎇ Alt+. or ⎇ Alt+_	Yank	last argument	of the previous command
Refresh	clear-screen	^ Ctrl+l	Clear	the screen
	redraw-current-line	None	Refresh	the current line

⎇ Alt is also called "meta" prefix and written "M-" or "\M-".
^ Ctrl is also called "control" prefix and written "C-" or "\C-".

Loose convention is that Control operates on characters while Meta operates on words.

Numeric arguments can be passed to readline commands. Type meta digits (⎇ Alt+digit, digit can be - for negative arguments) and then the command. Once the first meta digit is typed, the reminder (if any) can be typed normally. For instance, ⎇ Alt+1, 0, ^ Ctrl+d will delete the next 10 characters.
Numeric arguments can also be used to repeat normal inputs. For instance, ⎇ Alt+1, 0, k inserts "kkkkkkkkkk". If the input is a digit, ^ Ctrl+v can be used to insert it : ⎇ Alt+1, 0, ^ Ctrl+v, 2 inserts "2222222222".

These bindings can be changed with a configuration file called inputrc.

Also, in Bash, the bind builtin command can be used to display (bind -P) or modify the readline key bindings. The read builtin command can be used to see the string corresponding to special key inputs. For instance, F5 gives "^[[15~" and then bind '"\e[15~":"top\C-m"' would map F5 to "top\n"