bash inject escape sequences to read

Question

I'm trying to do the following:

...$ left=$'\e[D'
...$ read -e -i "prompt${left}" line

I'd like to get prompt with cursor on t , but I get:

prompt^[[D

any ideas? Seems as if I cannot binding keystrokes with -i option

Answer 1

Just echo it.

echo -n "prompt${left}"
read -r line

Answer 2

On the command line, we can bind the read command to a function key:

bind '"'$(tput kf5)$'":"read -e -i prompt\n\e[D"'

You press F5 to run read