The following is a commonly-asked question, but please note it is not my question: "how do I get my keyboard to skip backward and forward using arrow keys in the OSX Terminal in normal circumstances?".

My question is "how do I get my keyboard to skip backward and forward using arrow keys in the OSX Terminal when providing text input interactively to a perl script?".

To explain, my Terminal does all of its arrowing between words and letters just fine, i.e. if I type like this at the command line (bash):

codysmac: ~$ foo bar baz bax

I can skip backward and forward a word at a time, a char at a time, to the start, to the end and so on.

But when I'm interacting with a Perl script, this is no longer the case.

Take this very simple script:

print "foo bar bax baz\n";
print "is this correct?\n";
print "if not, type the correct version:\n";
my $new_version = <STDIN>;

[download]

What "shell" or terminal type or other editing mode am I in if I start typing now? Because whatever it is, I can't use the arrow keys to go left and right, or any other shortcuts.

I just get ^[[b and ^[[C for left and right.

In reply to What editing mode am I in when interacting with a Perl script using OS X Terminal? Because the keyboard works differently to a normal shell. by Cody Fendant

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