cd command completion confusion

pooldoo · 2009-07-03 00:16:30

Suppose i have a directory named documents and a file named doctors. If I enter

$ cd doc<tab><tab>
documents/ doctors

If my memory is failing, I apologize, but in the past I thought the completion feature only would look for directories. Has something changed?

Statix · 2009-07-03 01:53:32

As long as I remember it it's done both files and folders. That's how it works on my system right now. It doesn't care what command it's started with (whether it be cd or cat, for example) so it shows all.

I imagine that you could get it to behave differently depending on command, but I've never looked into doing that.

Trent · 2009-07-03 01:58:53

Only completes folders here. Do you have bash-completion installed?

Ranguvar · 2009-07-03 02:05:11

It depends on the command. With cd, completion should only match folders.

Statix · 2009-07-03 02:18:42

Actually yeah you guys are right, haha. I didn't test it well enough I guess. cd seems to only match folders, but all other commands seem to do both.

crouse · 2009-07-03 02:38:08

I'd like to suggest:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bas … Completion

I think you'll find what your looking for there, in order to setup bash completion that is smart enough to know to find directories only.

dmz · 2009-07-03 04:19:15

... or just use zsh.

crouse · 2009-07-03 04:21:15

or not

pooldoo · 2009-07-03 05:19:01

Yes, I do have bash-completion installed. And I read the wiki, but still don't understand. It was working right until recenty, don't know what happened. I'm tempted to try zsh, but I don't really want to change shells just because one command got a little funky. Any other ideas?

arkham · 2009-07-03 15:52:41

Reinstall bash and post (if they exist) your ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile and ~/.profile

pooldoo · 2009-07-03 20:05:59

I reinstalled bash but the problem persists.

#.bashrc
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '
alias dir='ls -d */'
alias move='mv -i'
PATH=$PATH:/home/d/bin

# bash_profile

$HOME/.bashrc
startx

Is there a configuration file for determining rules for completion? I can't imagine what I may have done to change this, other than updating my system. It seems odd that others aren't having this problem.

droog · 2009-07-03 21:04:12

pooldoo wrote:

Is there a configuration file for determining rules for completion? I can't imagine what I may have done to change this, other than updating my system. It seems odd that others aren't having this problem.

Seems you still need this in your .bashrc, at least i do.

if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ]; then
. /etc/bash_completion
fi

pooldoo · 2009-07-04 12:12:11

That worked! Thanks a lot droog, and everyone else.

Looking at my archived .bashrc from before the completion problem occurred, I see that the missing line of code wasn't there. Maybe bash_completion was previously started elsewhere on my system? So it's a mystery to me how this occurred, but all's well now.

lolilolicon · 2009-08-30 04:49:34

First, sorry for bringing this old thread back...well,

As for the reason why bash_completion ain't sourced as described in the wiki, it is because your terminal is not a login shell. Check /etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh and you will see.

Do as droog suggested. Works totally fine.

Last edited by lolilolicon (2009-08-30 04:50:23)

Profjim · 2009-08-30 10:23:40

Yeah, I had posted a bug report about this back in the days when we had a bug tracker. /etc/profile.d/bash_completion is deciding whether to automatically call /etc/bash_completion for you. They used to decide based on the non-emptiness of "$PS1", which would include all interactive shells; now they decide based on "shopt -q login_shell" which only includes login shells. I don't think this change is justified, but...

Arch Linux

#1 2009-07-03 00:16:30

cd command completion confusion

#2 2009-07-03 01:53:32

Re: cd command completion confusion

#3 2009-07-03 01:58:53

Re: cd command completion confusion

#4 2009-07-03 02:05:11

Re: cd command completion confusion

#5 2009-07-03 02:18:42

Re: cd command completion confusion

#6 2009-07-03 02:38:08

Re: cd command completion confusion

#7 2009-07-03 04:19:15

Re: cd command completion confusion

#8 2009-07-03 04:21:15

Re: cd command completion confusion

#9 2009-07-03 05:19:01

Re: cd command completion confusion

#10 2009-07-03 15:52:41

Re: cd command completion confusion

#11 2009-07-03 20:05:59

Re: cd command completion confusion

#12 2009-07-03 21:04:12

Re: cd command completion confusion

#13 2009-07-04 12:12:11

Re: cd command completion confusion

#14 2009-08-30 04:49:34

Re: cd command completion confusion

#15 2009-08-30 10:23:40

Re: cd command completion confusion

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