Control-r reverse-i-search in Bash: how do you "reset" the search in Cygwin?
bash, cygwin, readline
Solution
I never tried making this the default when hitting Esc, but Bash uses `readline` for input, which accepts Emacs-style keybindings by default, so you can go to the bottom using `M->` (usually either by combining Meta/Alt and > or by following the Esc key with >).
If `M->` does not work because your terminal does not let you enter that, try `^G` (Ctrl and `G` simultaneously). That is the "cancel" stroke in Emacs and usually works with `readline` too.
Problem
How do you tell Ctrl + R reverse-i-search to "reset itself" and start searching from the bottom of your history every time? Background: When using reverse-i-search in Bash, I always get stuck once it is finished searching up through the history and it cannot find any more matches. Sometimes I hit Esc and re-invoke Ctrl + R a second time, expecting it to start a fresh new search from the bottom of my history. However, the "pointer" still seems to be at the previous place it left off in my history. The problem is, I usually do not want this behavior. If I hit Esc, and then re-invoke Ctrl + R, I would like that to indicate it should restart from the bottom again and work its way back up. I am using Cygwin on Windows, as none of the so-far mentioned solutions work. This question was marked as a potential duplicate question. This question is not a duplicate for the following reasons: - The alternate question does not deal with Cygwin. - The alternate question does not deal with how to reset the search to its initial state (instead it deals with simply going backward in search as well as forward).