MacOS – How to get a terminal general auto-complete function

auto-completecommand linemacosterminal

I'm new in macOS and I'm using macOS Sierra,

In my Ubuntu and other Linux-based system, terminal has an auto-complete that helps to complete commands and their options.

For example for wget and other commands, in additional to command completion, after pressing Tab 2 times, it lists all command options (if any), or in sudo w it list all commands start with w

But on my Mac, it just complete first commands and don't help for options or second part of command like whoami in sudo whoami,

I mean it don't show a list of all command that start with who after pressing Tab 2 times in sudo who

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I found some Scripts for git options at https://github.com/git/git/tree/master/contrib/completion/ , but I want something that do this for all commands and applications.

Is there any solution for that?

Best Answer

The completion function is neither coming from any Terminal application or the OS on which you work: MacOS X, Linux…

This function is provided by your shell. To check which one is providing you the completion function you like, just get which shell you are using on Linux with:

echo ${SHELL}

Then change your login shell on MacOS X with:

chsh -s /bin/my_preferred_shell

to use the one which is performing the completion function you want.

Check that this shell exists and is executable, and read the documentation of chsh:

ls -ld /bin/my_preferred_shell

man chsh

To test it without risk, don't restart your session, just open a new Terminal. In case of error, you will be able to run chsh once more.

Related Solutions

Git auto-complete for branches at the command line

ok, so I needed the git autocompletion script.

I got that from this url:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/git/git/master/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash -o ~/.git-completion.bash

No need to worry about what directory you're in when you run this as your home directory(~) is used with the target.

Then I added to my ~/.bash_profile file the following 'execute if it exists' code:

if [ -f ~/.git-completion.bash ]; then
  . ~/.git-completion.bash
fi

Update: I'm making these bits of code more concise to shrink down my .bashrc file, in this case I now use:

test -f ~/.git-completion.bash && . $_

Note: $_ means the last argument to the previous command. so . $_ means run it - "it" being .git-completion.bash in this case

This still works on both Ubuntu and OSX and on machines without the script .git-completion.bash script.

Now git Tab (actually it's git TabTab ) works like a charm!

p.s.: If this doesn't work off the bat, you may need to run chmod u+x ~/.git-completion.bash to grant yourself the necessary permission:

chmod is the command that modifies file permissions
u means the user that owns the file, by default its creator, i.e. you
+ means set/activate/add a permission
x means execute permission, i.e. the ability to run the script

MacOS – How to remove .DS_Store from command-line auto-completion using cd

export FIGNORE=DS_Store works for me.

The GNU Bash manual provides extensive information on programmable completion.

Specifically, from the documentation on bash variables

FIGNORE [is a] colon-separated list of suffixes to ignore when performing filename completion. A file name whose suffix matches one of the entries in FIGNORE is excluded from the list of matched file names. A sample value is ‘.o:~’

If you are concerned that there might be existing suffixes in FIGNORE, then you can use:

export FIGNORE=$FIGNORE:DS_Store

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Git auto-complete for *branches* at the command line

MacOS – How to remove .DS_Store from command-line auto-completion using cd

Related Question

Git auto-complete for branches at the command line