Although the Readline library comes with a set of GNU Emacs-like keybindings, it is possible that you would like to use a different set of keybindings. You can customize programs that use Readline by putting commands in an init file in your home directory. The name of this file is `~/.inputrc'.
When a program which uses the Readline library starts up, the `~/.inputrc' file is read, and the keybindings are set.
In addition, the C-x C-r command re-reads this init file, thus incorporating any changes that you might have made to it.