iPython in Terminal.app: multi-line editing

Question

I'm using iPython in Terminal.app (on Mac), and when I scrollback to a multi-line block it's really slow moving between lines. Is there a keybinding (or can I configure one) to make it possible to easily move between lines quickly?

Answer 1

Ipython depends upon the readline bindings. In looking through the man page for readline, I could not find a command that skips by lines, but moving by words is better than moving by character, so I have added the lines

c.TerminalIPythonApp.exec_lines = ['import readline',
  """readline.parse_and_bind('"5D" backward-word')""",
  """readline.parse_and_bind('"5C" forward-word')"""]

to my ipython_config.py file (for details on this file see the ipython start up files reference.) Note that the "5D" comes from what appears on my screen when I type ctrlleft, and similar for ctrlright.

Answer 2

I just did a quick check and with the latest version of iPython I don't have the same problem.

Have you installed the gnu readline package or the python equivalent? If you haven't then I'd recommend "sudo pip install readline" at the terminal prompt.