How do I exit or cancel inline commands in the terminal?

Question

If I\'m in the Terminal and I want to exit or cancel a command how would I do so? Escape does nothing and hitting the up arrow copies the command.

Answer 1

Ctrl + C is used to kill a process with the signal SIGINT, and can be intercepted by a program so it can clean its self up before exiting, or not exit at all.

Ctrl + Z is used for suspending a process by sending it the signal SIGSTOP, which cannot be intercepted by the program.

Random fact:

If you were writing a long command such as $ cd /User/myname/Desktop -r grep | .*.* and want to delete it press Ctrl + U.

Answer 2

Type \c and hit return. That will clear the current input statement.