Bash – Apt-get autocompletion

aptautocompletebashnot-root-user

I am currently running 64-bit Debian Wheezy.

I am having some trouble with auto completion for apt-get. I have bash-completion installed.

If I am logged in as root in a shell, I can use auto completion for apt-get (ex: apt-get install wicd[tab][tab]) and it will show me all the packages that match that. But if I try to use auto completion for apt-get in another non-root user (even with sudo) it will not work at all. I can auto complete other things like file names.

Any help?

I do have the following code in my .bashrc and /etc/profile

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

Best Answer

Your /etc/bash_completion file must be missing.

sudo apt-get install bash-completion

should solve all your problems.

Given that you already have lines uncommented in /etc/bash.bashrc as Faheem Mitha and others pointed out, it should work now:

# enable bash completion in interactive shells
if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ] && ! shopt -oq posix; then
    . /etc/bash_completion
fi

Reason: The bash-completion package now has that file (/etc/bash_completion). It used to be in the bash package, but not any more.

info on package change

Related Solutions

Bash Alias Autocomplete – How to Get Bash Completion for Command Aliases

There is a great thread about this on the Ubuntu forums. Ole J proposes the following alias completion definition function:

function make-completion-wrapper () {
  local function_name="$2"
  local arg_count=$(($#-3))
  local comp_function_name="$1"
  shift 2
  local function="
    function $function_name {
      ((COMP_CWORD+=$arg_count))
      COMP_WORDS=( "$@" \${COMP_WORDS[@]:1} )
      "$comp_function_name"
      return 0
    }"
  eval "$function"
  echo $function_name
  echo "$function"
}

Use it to define a completion function for your alias, then specify that function as a completer for the alias:

make-completion-wrapper _apt_get _apt_get_install apt-get install
complete -F _apt_get_install apt-inst

I prefer to use aliases for adding always-used arguments to existing programs. For instance, with grep, I always want to skip devices and binary files, so I make an alias for grep. For adding new commands such as grepbin, I use a shell script in my ~/bin folder. If that folder is in your path, it will get autocompleted.

Bash Completion Incomplete on CentOS 7 – Troubleshooting Guide

You might want to try bash-completion-extras. It was briefly only in epel-testing, but has been released into epel. Right now, you should be able to run:

yum --enablerepo=epel install bash-completion-extras

...to get bash-completion-extras.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash Alias Autocomplete – How to Get Bash Completion for Command Aliases

Bash Completion Incomplete on CentOS 7 – Troubleshooting Guide

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