Editing

The linenoise-based CLI editor is available for macOS, Linux and Windows.

DuckDB’s CLI uses a line-editing library based on linenoise, which has shortcuts that are based on Emacs mode of readline. Below is a list of available commands. You can also view these shortcuts from within the CLI using .help shortcuts.

Moving

Key	Action
`Left`	Move back a character
`Right`	Move forward a character
`Up`	Move up a line. When on the first line, move to previous history entry
`Down`	Move down a line. When on last line, move to next history entry
`Home`	Move to beginning of buffer
`End`	Move to end of buffer
`Ctrl`+`Left`	Move back a word
`Ctrl`+`Right`	Move forward a word
`Ctrl`+`A`	Move to beginning of buffer
`Ctrl`+`B`	Move back a character
`Ctrl`+`E`	Move to end of buffer
`Ctrl`+`F`	Move forward a character
`Alt`+`Left`	Move back a word
`Alt`+`Right`	Move forward a word

History

Key	Action
`Ctrl`+`P`	Move to previous history entry
`Ctrl`+`N`	Move to next history entry
`Ctrl`+`R`	Search the history
`Ctrl`+`S`	Search the history
`Alt`+`<`	Move to first history entry
`Alt`+`>`	Move to last history entry
`Alt`+`N`	Search the history
`Alt`+`P`	Search the history

Changing Text

Key	Action
`Backspace`	Delete previous character
`Delete`	Delete next character
`Ctrl`+`D`	Delete next character. When buffer is empty, end editing
`Ctrl`+`H`	Delete previous character
`Ctrl`+`K`	Delete everything after the cursor
`Ctrl`+`T`	Swap current and next character
`Ctrl`+`U`	Delete all text
`Ctrl`+`W`	Delete previous word
`Alt`+`C`	Convert next word to titlecase
`Alt`+`D`	Delete next word
`Alt`+`L`	Convert next word to lowercase
`Alt`+`R`	Delete all text
`Alt`+`T`	Swap current and next word
`Alt`+`U`	Convert next word to uppercase
`Alt`+`Backspace`	Delete previous word
`Alt`+`\`	Delete spaces around cursor

Completing

Key	Action
`Tab`	Autocomplete. When autocompleting, cycle to next entry
`Shift`+`Tab`	When autocompleting, cycle to previous entry
`Esc`+`Esc`	When autocompleting, revert autocompletion

Miscellaneous

Key	Action
`Enter`	Execute query. If query is not complete, insert a newline at the end of the buffer
`Ctrl`+`J`	Execute query. If query is not complete, insert a newline at the end of the buffer
`Ctrl`+`C`	Cancel editing of current query
`Ctrl`+`G`	Cancel editing of current query
`Ctrl`+`L`	Clear screen
`Ctrl`+`O`	Cancel editing of current query
`Ctrl`+`X`	Insert a newline after the cursor
`Ctrl`+`Q`, then click	Move cursor to mouse click position
`Ctrl`+`Z`	Suspend CLI and return to shell, use `fg` to re-open

External Editor Mode

Use .edit or \e to open a query in an external text editor.

When entered alone, it opens the previous command for editing.
When used inside a multi-line command, it opens the current command in the editor.

The editor is taken from the first set environment variable among DUCKDB_EDITOR, EDITOR or VISUAL (in that order). If none are set, vi is used.

Using Read-Line

If you prefer, you can use rlwrap to use read-line directly with the shell. Then, use Shift+Enter to insert a newline and Enter to execute the query:

rlwrap --substitute-prompt="D " duckdb -batch