How to extend bash completion in other directory?

Question

I'm learning about bash completion. I'm able to list the content of only current directory. Here is my code:

   _foo()
   {
       local cur prev opts
       COMPREPLY=()
       cur="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}"
       prev="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD-1]}"

       opts="push pull"
       OUTPUT=" $(ls) "

      case "${prev}" in
          push)
              COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -W "--in --out" -- ${cur}) )
              return 0
              ;;
          --in)
              COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -W "$OUTPUT" -- ${cur}) )
              return 0
              ;;
      esac

        COMPREPLY=($(compgen -W "${opts}" -- ${cur}))
        return 0
  }
  complete -F _foo foo

It's output is:

$ foo push --in[TAB]
file1.txt file2.txt foo  ;; content of pwd

But when I do this:

$ foo push --in ~[TAB]

It's not working. So I want to know how to do bash completion in different directory (not only in pwd)? Thanks.

Oh they are actually not in script. These are just because of Vim editor. And I copied this script from there so line number also copied. — rishi kant, Jul 09 '16 at 20:10

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

You can use -f to match filenames :

#!/bin/bash
_foo()    {
       local cur prev opts
       COMPREPLY=()
       cur="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}"
       prev="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD-1]}"
       opts="push pull"

       case "${prev}" in
          push)
              COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -W "--in --out" -- ${cur}) )
              return 0
              ;;
          --in)
              COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -f ${cur}) )
              return 0
              ;;
      esac

      COMPREPLY=($(compgen -W "${opts}" -- ${cur}))
      return 0   
}

complete -F _foo foo

However it seems that it doesn't work for ~ alone but $ foo push --in ~/[TAB] works and all other directories This solution wont include slash to look for file in directory : $ foo push --in /etc[TAB] will give foo push --in /etc and not foo push --in /etc/

The following post solves that problem using default mode :
Getting compgen to include slashes on directories when looking for files

default

Use Readline’s default filename completion if the compspec generates no matches.

So you can use :

#!/bin/bash
_foo()
   {
       local cur prev opts
       COMPREPLY=()
       cur="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}"
       prev="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD-1]}"

       opts="push pull"
       OUTPUT=" $(ls) "

      case "${prev}" in
          push)
              COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -W "--in --out" -- ${cur}) )
              return 0
              ;;
          --in)
              COMPREPLY=()
              return 0
              ;;
          --port)
              COMPREPLY=("")
              return 0
              ;;
      esac

        COMPREPLY=($(compgen -W "${opts}" -- ${cur}))
        return 0
  }
  complete -o default -F _foo foo

Or setting to default mode when you need to like this post : https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/149398/146783

This is good. But What If I don't want to do anything in particular case. Suppose there is argument --port, And I want to take it from keyboard. It should be like this `$ foo push --port[TAB]` ;; Auto completion should stop, no result. It indicate user to pass --port value from keyboard. But by your answer, It will be `$ foo push --port[TAB]` ;; content of pwd So is there any way to specify that, we don't default result in these cases? — rishi kant, Jul 10 '16 at 03:54
But that's not working. `$ foo push --in[TAB] bash: compopt: command not found` This is error message which I got. — rishi kant, Jul 10 '16 at 04:09
Did you source the file in bash_completion.d ? try to add `#!/bin/bash` at the top to be sure it uses the right bash. If your bash is not in `/bin/bash` replace with the right bash location (`which bash`) — Bertrand Martel, Jul 10 '16 at 04:24
this wont include slash to look for subdirectories if you do that — Bertrand Martel, Jul 10 '16 at 04:34
Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/116908/discussion-between-rishi-kant-and-bertrand-martel). — rishi kant, Jul 10 '16 at 04:41

How to extend bash completion in other directory?

1 Answers1