IEx - How to cancel multiline command?

Question

When I use IEx and make a typo like additional bracket or ", then most of the time I get a syntax error. But there are cases like this one:

iex(3)> Enum.each '12345', &(IO.puts(&1"))     ...(3)> end    ...(3)> )    ...(3)> '     ...(3)> end     ...(3)> ""     ...(3)> ... ? How to produce syntax error ?     ...(3)>      BREAK: (a)bort (c)ontinue (p)roc info (i)nfo (l)oaded           (v)ersion (k)ill (D)b-tables (d)istribution    

I cannot make a syntax error and continue from scratch and I have to relaunch entire IEx. Is there any keyboard shortcut or command to skip performing current iex(3) and go to next iex(4)?

Answer 1

Start your line with #iex:break

iex(1)> Enum.each '12345', &(IO.puts(&1"))     ...(1)> ... ...(1)> #iex:break  ** (TokenMissingError) iex:1: incomplete expression 

Answer 2

In general, you can also press Ctrl + G, which will drop you into to the "User switch command" mode with a ---> prompt. From here, you can type i to interrupt your IEx session, then c to reconnect to it; IEx will then state ** (EXIT) interrupted and return to the state it was in immediately before you got stuck. This is a feature of Erlang's shell (erl) that was inherited by IEx.

Example of this in action:

iex(3)> Enum.each '12345', &(IO.puts(&1")) ...(3)> end ...(3)> ) ...(3)> ' ...(3)> end ...(3)> "" ...(3)>        <-- Ctrl-G goes here (not shown normally) User switch command  --> i  --> c ** (EXIT) interrupted iex(3)>