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Executing queries in the JavaScript shell of Mongo feels a lot like executing commands right in the bash shell. Because of this, my fingers keep trying to Ctrl+C my way out of a command that I want to "abort" and land back at the command prompt. Unfortunately, in the mongo shell at 2.0.4, when I Ctrl+C, it drops me out of the JavaScript shell, rather than just aborting the command and giving me the command prompt.

Is there a way in the JavaScript shell to abandon the current command without executing it and land back at the command prompt?

Penny Liu
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Bob Kuhar
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1 Answers1

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What I've always naturally done is type a ( and then immediately hit enter three times. The shell will assume you are just hitting enter to break up your command, but if you hit enter 2 more times it will exit back to the shell. It's wonky, but it works.

Edit: Use ctrl+d, which "kills the shell" according to http://www.gotothings.com/unix/bash-hotkeys.htm. If you hit this once after hitting enter in the middle of typing a command in the mongo shell, it will exit your continuation and get you back to a clean mongo prompt. Hitting it twice will exit the mongo shell.

whaley
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  • Ah! I was wondering that too. Just keeping Enter and the shell will give up on my uncompleted command. "Wonky, but it works" is certainly true. Have an upvote, but I'm holding out for some Ctrl+...something for another hour or so. – Bob Kuhar Jun 08 '12 at 17:20
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    If you've already hit `return` on the current command (i.e. you're still on the same line) the Mongo shell also uses the BASH convention that `[ctrl] + [u]` will clear the current command (actually, a lot of BASH hotkeys seem to work - http://www.gotothings.com/unix/bash-hotkeys.htm). If you just want to clear the last word you have entered you can use `[ctrl] + [w]`. I have only tested this on Ubuntu, so it's possible that the behaviour is different under different operating systems. If you have hit `return` this will only clear the current input line, and the solution above works fine. – Aaron Newton Feb 22 '13 at 11:14
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    ctrl+u and ctrl+w should be the selected answer – IGRACH Jan 27 '15 at 15:09
  • the link @AaronNewton actually states the ctrl+d kills the shell. I personally could not recreate deleting the entire command in progress, assuming I've hit enter on a command with ctrl+u. ctrl+u only deletes the characters on the same line in my shell. ctrl+d actuall kills the entire command (though hitting it twice exits the mongo shell). – whaley Feb 26 '15 at 01:45