Bash – compgen : ignoring case

autocompletebash

I'm trying to implement a custom bash completion as described here. However, it seems that compgen is case-sensitive. Is there a way to turn it case-insensitive in that context ?

Best Answer

I would modify the example from the link you mentioned into something like this:

_foo() 
{
    local cur prev opts
    COMPREPLY=()
    cur="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD],,}"     # this downcases the result
    prev="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD-1],,}"  # here too
    opts="--help --verbose --version"

    if [[ ${cur} == -* ]] ; then
        COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -W "${opts}" -- ${cur}) )
        return 0
    fi
}
complete -F _foo foo

For more info refer to the bash documentation or the bash hackers site.

Related Solutions

Bash – Autocomplete Filenames Using Compgen

I found the answer myself: I have to use the -A action option:

compgen -o filenames -A file ...
complete -o filenames -A file

Bash – Custom autocomplete: deal with spaces in filenames

Believe it might be better to use compgen instead of find in this case.

You probably already have a completion script with system. Try e.g.

locate bash_completion

On Debian variants this is probably:

/usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion

where you find e.g. _filedir. So the simplest way then would be something in the direction of:

*)
    pushd "/some/path" >/dev/null
    _filedir
    popd >/dev/null

If that is not an option this could be a starter:

_comp_by_path()
{
    local opt cur dir
    local IFS=$'\n' x tmp
    local -a tokens

    opt="$1"
    cur="$2"
    dir="$3"

    # Enter target directory
    pushd "$dir" >/dev/null

    # Get directories, filtered against current
    [[ "$opt" != "-f" ]] && \
    x=$( compgen -d -- "$cur" ) &&
    while read -r tmp; do
        tokens+=( "$tmp" )
    done <<< "$x"

    # Get files, filtered against current
    [[ "$opt" != "-d" ]] && \
    x=$( compgen -f -- "$cur" ) &&
    while read -r tmp; do
        tokens+=( "$tmp" )
    done <<< "$x"

    # If anything found
    if [[ ${#tokens[@]} -ne 0 ]]; then
        # Make sure escaping is OK
        compopt -o filenames 2>/dev/null
        COMPREPLY+=( "${tokens[@]}" )
    fi

    # Go back
    popd >/dev/null
}

_GetOptMyCommand()
{
    local cur

    COMPREPLY=()
    cur="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}"

    case "$cur" in
    -*)
        COMPREPLY=( $( compgen -W "-h -l --help --list --" -- "$cur" ) );;
    *)
        _comp_by_path "any" "$cur" "/some/path"
    esac
}

complete -F _GetOptMyCommand my_command

A variant using find could be something in direction of this:

_zaso()
{
    local dir="$1"

    pushd "$dir" >/dev/null
    find * -maxdepth 0 2>/dev/null
    popd >/dev/null
}

_comp_with_find()
{
    local cur dir      
    local IFS=$'\n'

    cur="$1"
    dir="$2"

    compopt -o filenames 2>/dev/null
    COMPREPLY=( $( compgen -W "$(_zaso "$dir")" -- "$cur" ) );
}

Also note that printf in Bash has a %q option. So to generate quoted strings this is an option to play with:

find * -maxdepth 0 2>/dev/null && \
while read -r tmp; do
    printf "%q\n" "$tmp"
done <<< "$x"

Also not that file names can have newline characters in which a lot of this will break. Have not found a way to use \0 with compgen.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash – Autocomplete Filenames Using Compgen

Bash – Custom autocomplete: deal with spaces in filenames

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