Shell Control Keys

In shells like zsh, sh, bash and tcsh, there are many shortcuts which help you editing. Below is a table.

Editing control keys

control-A	Cursor to begin of line
control-E	Cursor to end of line
control-U	Delete line
conrtol-K	Delete from cursor to end
control-W	Delete previous word
control-B	Cursor back one word (custom key)
control-N	Cursor forward one word (custom key)
control-D	Delete character (same as delete; not backspace)
control-H	Delete previous character (same as backspace)
control-T	Transpose (change order) of two characters
control-L	Clear screen
control-_	Undo

These commands directly affect a process in the shell

control-C	Break
control-Z	Suspend the running job. (Use the bg and fg commands to resume them in the background or foreground)
control-S	Suspend flow control (input is processed, but output not send to the terminal)
control-Q	Resume normal flow control
control-D	Logout (exit)

These keys all have an equivalent "normal" key

control-M	return	Carriage Return
control-J	enter	Carriage Return
control-B	arrow left	Cursor back one character (overriden by my bindkeys)
control-F	arrow right	Cursor forward one character
control-P	arrow up	Previous command in history
control-D	delete	Delete character
control-H	backspace	Delete previous character

To make sure I can always use my beloved shortcuts, I put these commands in my .zshrc file. ^? is the same as the backspace key.

bindkey "^A" beginning-of-line
bindkey "^E" end-of-line
bindkey "^B" backward-word
bindkey "^N" forward-word
bindkey "^?" backward-delete-char