[plug] bash the curious

[Cameron Patrick]

Ryan wrote:

> (arg: 3123)
> 
> Then whatever I press next that is non numerical gets printed on the
> prompt 3123 times.  Great.

It's an Emacs thing :-)

I suspect it might be more useful in bash for cursor movement commands
than inserting text.  e.g. M-3 M-f to go forward three words.  In
emacs, many commands will use the numerical argument for something
other than a repeat count (e.g. C-x f, the "set-fill-column" command,
uses the argument as the width of the text column for wrapping text).
I'm not sure if any bash commands do this.  man readline lists a few
which do (search for "arg").

Pressing Ctrl-G (the universal Emacs "bugger off and get me back to
text editing" key) will cancel the argument prompt.

Cameron.