Why is "bind ~/.inputrc" causing my up-right slash key ('/') to be disabled until I re-login?

Question

Below is my .inputrc file. Why, after calling bind ~/.inputrc, is my up-right slash key disabled, until I logout and login again?

# Key-bindings for the command-line editor.

# Ask before displaying >50 items
# Since $WINDIR $PATH var can be in $PATH, this could list
# all window exectables in C:\WINDOWS
set completion-query-items 50

# Ignore case for the command-line-completion functionality
# on:  default to a Windows style console
# off: default to a *nix style console
set completion-ignore-case on

# none, visible or audible
set bell-style audible

# disable/enable 8bit input
set meta-flag on
set input-meta on
set output-meta off
set convert-meta on

# visible-stats
# Append a mark according to the file type in a listing
set visible-stats off
set mark-directories on

# Show all instead of beeping first
set show-all-if-ambiguous on

"\e[1~": beginning-of-line       #HOME
"\e[4~": end-of-line             #END
"\e[A":history-search-backward   #UP
"\e[B":history-search-forward    #DOWN

Answer 1

Because bind ~/.inputrc is a command to bind the key sequence /home/aliteralmind/inputrc where /home/aliteralmind is your home directory. This binds / to a prefix key for which no binding is defined, so pressing the / key afterwards does nothing.

To read a readline file from bash, use

bind -f ~/.inputrc

This particular example is not very useful though, since ~/.inputrc is read when bash starts. The only use is to load your new bindings if you change the file (this won't remove bindings that you've removed).