The keyboard at a glance

Updated: October 28, 2024

The table below describes how the character-device drivers interpret various keys and keychords (groups of keys that you press simultaneously). The drivers handle these keys as soon as you type them.

Note: Your keyboard might not behave as indicated if:

If you want to: Press:
Move the cursor to the left (left arrow)
Move the cursor to the right (right arrow)
Move the cursor to the start of a line Home
Move the cursor to the end of a line End
Delete the character left of the cursor Backspace
Delete the character at the cursor Del
Delete all characters on a line CtrlU
Toggle between insert and typeover modes (if an application supports them) Ins
Submit a line of input or start a new line Enter
Recall a command (see below) or (up or down arrow)
Suspend the displaying of output CtrlS
Resume the displaying of output CtrlQ
Attempt to kill a process CtrlC or CtrlBreak
Indicate end of input (EOF) CtrlD
Clear the terminal CtrlL

When you use the up or down arrow, the character-device driver passes a “back” or “forward” command to the shell, which recalls the actual command.