When you can not type a character in the terminal

Update: This topic has been replaced by this updated version:


This post is about the problem where you find that you can’t type certain characters in the terminal.

###The courses that this has been reported in:

  • Learn the Command Line
  • Learn Git
  • Learn Rails

###The characters that have been reported are:

$ | space ~ ' "

Various solutions

These are not in any particular order.

Option 1: If you can, try a different web browser.

Option 2: Use your Alt key combined with the ASCII code for the problem character.

Character   Alt + ASCII code
————————————————————————————
    $           Alt + 36
    |           Alt + 124
  Space         Alt + 32
    ~           Alt + 126
    '           Alt + 39
    "           Alt + 34

Option 3: Use the on-screen keyboard.

Option 4: Change your keyboard input language to American QWERTY – you might need to find a link or two on how to do that.

Option 5: Copy and paste the character.

@albionsrefuge I edited it some, more to see how editing someone else’s post was than because anything really needed fixing :smile:
I wasn’t really sure about #3, though. Was the “find a link or two” a note for someone to add a couple links into the post on how to do that, or was it advice for the person having trouble?
Thanks :slight_smile:

Edit:

Soon, Discourse should have Markdown table support, which we could use to format that keyboard shortcut list :slight_smile:

https://meta.discourse.org/t/markdown-table-support-in-a-discourse-topic/13546/72?u=zystvan

(talking about when tables will get added to Discourse)

That looks great! I didn’t know about the kbd code - very nice.

About option 3, I like your solution, better than us posting links that could get stale.

1 Like

None of the options work for me

What browser/operating system combination are you using?

Hi all,
I was using a very old black macbook (2007). Solved:) by copied and paste.
I think the problem is that it can’t be actualitzated to the new operating sistems. I tried with safari and firefox.

Thank you for getting back to us with the solution that you’ve found. I’ve added it to the options for others to try.

I have the same issue in the exercise 2/11 in the learn command. I can’t write “~”. It is strange because in the Python course I can paste both: “|” and “~”.
Nayma

I agree. Likely there is someone who knows “why” this happens, but that isn’t me. :interrobang:

copy and paste won’t probably work in the command line because it doesn’t allow you to copy and paste.

I have had it not work for me too, maybe on my Windows machine, but I can’t test to confirm right now. On OS X with Chrome, copy/pasting in the command line is not a problem.

1 Like