Is there a shortcut in bash to delete the last segment of a path?

Question

I've become pretty proficient with a number of bash shortcut keys that make my bash-ing faster: C-a/C-e, C-u, C-w, M-f/M-b, C-r etc. One common task that I haven't found a good shortcut for though is when I want to delete the last segment of a path:

Say I have

ls ~/projects/arcaneweb/libraries

and I realize I actually meant

ls ~/projects/arcaneweb/sources

Is there a way to just delete libraries, saving a load of keystrokes?

Answer 1

A single shortcut: M-backspace

Answer 2

There is a replace option but not sure it would really save keystrokes unless the path was long.

^abc^xyz

This will replace the first occurrence of abc with xyz.

[root~]# ls -l /var/log/messages
-rw-------  1 root root 850312 Dec 28 14:08 /var/log/messages
[root ~]# ^messages^secure
ls -l /var/log/secure
-rw-------  1 root root 652614 Dec 28 14:08 /var/log/secure

Bash Shortcut reference: http://www.skorks.com/2009/09/bash-shortcuts-for-maximum-productivity/

Answer 3

M-b,C-k is the quickest I've found, made a bit less so due to needing to use ESC as Meta. If you have Alt/Option bound as Meta, this would be reasonably fast once you develop the muscle memory for it.