Ubuntu – How to you mirror an autocomplete function in your own aliases (in 14.04)

14.04aliasauto-completionbash

I have a bunch of aliases that I've used on my 12.04 machine.

example:

alias pssh="tsocks ssh"
alias pscp="tsocks scp"
alias prdp="tsocks xfreerdp  ..........SOMETHING ...."

These aliases are modifications of regular linux commands (scp,ssh ect.) therefore I'd like these aliases to have the same autocomplete rules as their original counterparts.
I don't want to write my own rules as the rules for the regular commands are perfectly fine.

In 12.04 the following worked perfectly:

complete -F _ssh pssh
complete -F _scp pscp
complete -F _ssh prdp

This doesn't work in 14.04. If I try to autocomplete I get the following error:

bash: completion: function `_ssh' not found

If I autocomplete on ssh before I try pssh everything works. As far as I know, it's because the autocomplete rules are not loaded before they are used. Until the autocomplete rules for ssh gets loaded, my rules are invalid and result in an error.

How to I fix this, how do I correctly hook my alias into an autocomplete rule defined for a regular linux command?

Best Answer

Newer bash completion releases (>=2.0) improved hugely the time used to load the autocompletion logic. They made them by loading on request the required files, the newer location for these files is:

/usr/share/bash-completion/completions/

If you use ls -lah to explore such directory you'll find than there exist many soft links. That's because a file is needed for every command/alias, so, if you have pssh, pscp and prdp you'll need to create links with those names:

sudo ln -s /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/ssh /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/psss
sudo ln -s /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/ssh /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/pscp
sudo ln -s /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/ssh /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/prdp

Another alternative is to syslink the ssh autocompletion file to /etc/bash_completion.d/

sudo ln -s /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/ssh /etc/bash_completion.d/ssh

The former method will load the _ssh function on every single bash interactive session (making slower the startup).

After using any of the above methods your complete -F _ssh pssh ... configuration will relate the _ssh function with your aliases.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Which aliases do you find most useful or helpful to your Ubuntu experience

Here are some that I like:

#Opens current directory in a file explorer
alias explore='nautilus .'

#Opens current directory in a file explorer with super user privileges
alias suexplore='sudo nautilus .'

#Opens current directory in Ubuntu's Disk Usage Analyzer GUI with super user privileges in the background
alias analyze='gksudo baobab . &'

#Opens a GUI text editor in the background. Can obviously be replaced with your favorite editor
alias text='gedit &'
#Same as above with super user privileges
alias sutext='gksudo gedit &'

#Opens a file with whatever program would open by double clicking on it in a GUI file explorer
#Usage: try someDocument.doc
alias try='gnome-open'

#lists contents of current directory with file permisions
alias ll='ls -l -sort'

#list all directories in current directories
alias ldir='ls -l | grep ^d'

#self explanatory
alias ..='cd ..'
alias ...='cd ../../'

#show aliases
alias a='echo "------------Your aliases------------";alias'
#Apply changes to aliases
alias sa='source ~/.bash_aliases;echo "Bash aliases sourced."'
#Edit Aliases
alias via='gksudo gedit ~/.bash_aliases &'

Ubuntu – How to preset aliases for all users

You can create a script in /etc/profile.d/ to make aliases for all users:

Create a file called 00-aliases.sh (or any other fancy name) in /etc/profile.d:
```
gksu gedit /etc/profile.d/00-aliases.sh
```

Put you aliases in this file. Example:

alias foo='bar --baz'
alias baz='foo --bar'

Save the file
Restart any open terminals to apply the changes.
Enjoy!

Some notes:

/etc/profile is a global file that gets run before ~/.profile.
/etc/profile.d/ is a folder that contains scripts called by /etc/profile
When /etc/profile is called (when you start/login a shell), it searches for any files ending in .sh in /etc/profile.d/ and runs them with one of these commands:
```
source /etc/profile.d/myfile.sh
```
```
. /etc/profile.d/myfile.sh
```
I'm putting 00- before the file name to make it execute before the rest of the scripts.
You can also add your aliases in /etc/profile, but this isn't recommended.

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – Which aliases do you find most useful or helpful to your Ubuntu experience

Ubuntu – How to preset aliases for all users

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