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Discussion on: 10 Terminal Commandments for Coding Newbies

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m1keym profile image
Mikey

I have recently started using the command line and this made me chuckle especially there 'where am i' and was extremely informative as well.

I've come across a problem I've yet to be able to fix, I wonder if you might have a solution.

When you're working with git and you're about to commit and type out a message but you forget one side of the "" around the message - my terminal goes wild and I haven't been able to figure out what to do except close and start again which is annoying.

Let's say I type git commit -m "initial commit

and press enter without closing the quotation mark I get just get

and nothing I press works, is there are cmd to fix it?

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kamilzag profile image
KamilZag

Have you tried
Ctrl + c
?
It should help i think

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stackoverturf profile image
Taylor Overturf • Edited

Hi Mikey, I know exactly what you're talking about and I have made the mistake of forgetting my ending quotation mark many times!

I agree with KamilZag, CRTL + C will allow you to return to the normal command line and get out of that weirdness.

I also just saw Aschwin's great explanation, yes, if you notice your error soon enough, I have found that I can add the ending " even if I've pressed enter. However, I did not know I could update my commit message, so thank you for that!

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m1keym profile image
Mikey

Thank you all so much for your help.

I've done it a few times and then I just end up staring blankly at the screen like 'WTF do I do' hit a few keys then close the terminal, but then I have to navigate all the way back to where I was because I don't know any other way. I contemplated Googling it but couldn't think of what to ask without writing an essay.

I appreciate the help! :)

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aschwin profile image
Aschwin Wesselius

Most of the time you can just add the closing quotation mark. It might include the tailing carriage return/linefeed (\n) into the commit message, but that's not that much damage done right? You can also update the commit message, which I hardly do so I don't know how to do it without looking it up for you.

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agredalex profile image
Alex Ágreda

You can edit your last commit message with git commit --amend