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TabCompletion version 2, including all changes.
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JohnMcPherson |
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A time-saving tool is known as command completion, currently known as Tab Completion. If you type part of a file, command, or pathname and then press the ~[Tab] key, bash(1) will present you with either the remaining portion of the file/path, or a beep (if sound is enabled on your system). If you get a beep, just press ~[Tab] again to obtain a list of the files/paths that match what has been typed so far. |
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CraigBox |
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JohnMcPherson |
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For example, if you forget the command updatedb, but remember a portion of the command, you can su to root, then at the shell prompt, type up, press the ~[Tab] key twice and you will see a list of possible completions, including updatedb and uptime. By typing the partial command "upd" and pressing ~[Tab] again, your command is completed for you. |
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CraigBox |
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JohnMcPherson |
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!!bash(1) |
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You may need to <tt>source /etc/bash_completion</tt> before you get extra programmable completion features, if your system doesn't already source this for interactive shells. |
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!!zsh(1) |
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Zsh has a more powerful tab-completion mechanism than bash. This comes at the cost of slightly more processing and bloat, although these days you won't notice. To get the advanced shell function-based completion, you need to run the <tt>compinstall</tt> function once (which will set up your .zshrc file for future use). |
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Examples include: |
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<verbatim> |
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$ ls -l |
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total 1 |
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-rw-r--r-- 1 me me 0 Jul 29 09:45 file1 |
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-rwxr-xr-x 1 me me 0 Jul 29 09:45 file2* |
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$ chmod -x [TAB] |
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</verbatim> |
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completing to only those files that currently have the +x permission set -- in this case, <tt>file2</tt>. |
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<verbatim> |
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$ tar [TAB] |
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A -- append to an archive |
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c -- create a new archive |
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f -- specify archive file or device |
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t -- list archive contents |
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u -- update archive |
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v -- verbose output |
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x -- extract files from an archive |
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</verbatim> |
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tells you all the available options for this command (and what they do), based on any options you have already added. For <tt>tar</tt>, it will only complete files ending in ".gz" or ".bz2" if the <tt>-z</tt> or <tt>-j</tt> option is given, respectively. |
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See the zshcompsys ManPage for details on customising the completion rules. |
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---- |
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You can enable limited tab-completion on Windows 2000 - see WindowsNotes. |
