On Mon, 2005-01-24 at 19:13 +0000, D. D. Brierton wrote: > Okay -- I've now determined the source of the problem but not a suitable > workaround. I have a ~/.inputrc file with the following in it: > > "\M-[A": history-search-backward > "\M-[B": history-search-forward > > That allows me to type the first couple of letters of a command and then > use the up and down arrows to search for matches in my bash history. Now > if I rename ~/.inputrc my delete key works properly again. But now I've > lost the very useful functionality of being able to search through my > bash history. So, what is the proper way to resolve this? > > BTW, creating ~/.inputrc with the above two lines in it was based on a > tip I got on this mailing list (or possibly the RHL9 list). After a *lot* of googling I eventually found the answer. If you create a ~/.inputrc then /etc/inputrc is no longer read unless you include a reference to it in ~/.inputrc. That is why my delete key stopped working as I wanted it to. The solution is this new improved ~/.inputrc: # Begin ~/.inputrc # By default up/down are bound to previous-history # and next-history respectively. The following does the # same but gives the extra functionality where if you # type any text (or more generally if there is any text # between the start of the line and the cursor), # the subset of the history starting with that text # is searched. "\e[B": history-search-forward "\e[A": history-search-backward # Include system wide settings which are ignored # by default if one has their own .inputrc $include /etc/inputrc Hope this helps someone else out. Best, Darren -- ===================================================================== D. D. Brierton darren@xxxxxxxxxxx www.dzr-web.com Trying is the first step towards failure (Homer Simpson) =====================================================================