This was also brought up in 2014 :-) https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/pull/1987
-Greg Vaughn > On Jan 16, 2026, at 2:44 PM, Amos King <[email protected]> wrote: > > Saving José some time. > > This was brought up in 2018. This might be some good background information. > > https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/issues/7310 > > Amos King > CEO > Binary Noggin > >> On Jan 16, 2026, at 12:35, Benjamin Philip <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> You’re right. I completely forgot about the case of connecting to a remote >> node. >> I’m guessing the reason neither iex or erl doesn’t support just gracefully >> exiting the repl without killing any other processes because tty doesn’t >> support it? Then how does this work with Ctrl+C? >> Additionally, Ctrl+D is typically the shortcut used to exit any shell (since >> it denotes EOF), not Ctrl+C. Most shells that support this probably >> inherited it from building on top of GNU readline or similar. I guess >> supporting this means patching edlin? Nevertheless, I think it’s a small, >> but important, quality of life improvement to support a quit/exit function >> and Ctrl+D our shell, since it doesn’t break the muscle memory of people >> coming from (or constantly switching back and fro) other languages. It’s a >> standard that everything from mainstream repls like python, irb and node, to >> more academic languages like Haskell and Coq and even lisps (which have >> heavy remote repl usage) like clojure, common lisp and scheme adhere to. >> Maybe it’s worth revisiting this after the necessary changes are made >> upstream? >> – bp >> From: =?UTF-8?Q?Jos=C3=A9_Valim?= <[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: [elixir-core:12150] iex: q() shorthand for :init.stop() >> To: [email protected] >> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2026 12:52:47 +0100 >> Thank you for the proposal. We didn't add this on purpose. Ctrl+C is the >> correct way to stop a remote shell. If you run `q()` on a remote node, it >> will stop the remote node, bringing production down. If that's what you >> want, type System.stop. :) >> >> >> José Valim >> https://dashbit.co/ >> >> >> On Fri, Jan 16, 2026 at 12:21 PM Benjamin Philip >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi, >> Currently the common way to exit iex is C-c C-c (Ctrl + c Ctrl + c). erl on >> the otherhand supports the q() helper, short for init:stop(): >> Erlang/OTP 28 [erts-16.0.2] [source] [64-bit] [smp:12:12] [ds:12:12:10] >> [async-threads:1] [jit:ns] >> >> Eshell V16.0.2 (press Ctrl+G to abort, type help(). for help) >> 1> q(). >> ok >> 2> % >> >> It would be great if we could introduce the same helper to iex. >> – bp >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "elixir-lang-core" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elixir-lang-core/CAMEXYWerue9T_inV-fmmxx4Kpi%3Dj-pFAC9yXujbu3SS7HXaNfA%40mail.gmail.com. >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "elixir-lang-core" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elixir-lang-core/CAGnRm4J9SyPZjLS8wS-4Tr%3DCG85s1pZ7mMZz3RQTwxLcx7xKtA%40mail.gmail.com. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "elixir-lang-core" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elixir-lang-core/CAMEXYWcQ7_c5mfgdAouYadj2j8jtUf6Ep%2BYoL%2BWpAkWe9S1c1w%40mail.gmail.com. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "elixir-lang-core" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elixir-lang-core/1EEF9F30-A737-4757-8EFE-E68E3A771486%40binarynoggin.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elixir-lang-core" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elixir-lang-core/DC22D920-0FB9-4FBE-8656-9746EF3246B3%40gmail.com.
