NAME Complete::Bash - Completion module for bash shell VERSION This document describes version 0.11 of Complete::Bash (from Perl distribution Complete-Bash), released on 2014-07-26. DESCRIPTION Bash allows completion to come from various sources. The simplest is from a list of words ("-W"): % complete -W "one two three four" somecmd % somecmd t two three Another source is from a bash function ("-F"). The function will receive input in two variables: "COMP_WORDS" (array, command-line chopped into words) and "COMP_CWORD" (integer, index to the array of words indicating the cursor position). It must set an array variable "COMPREPLY" that contains the list of possible completion: % _foo() { local cur COMPREPLY=() cur=${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]} COMPREPLY=($( compgen -W '--help --verbose --version' -- $cur ) ) } % complete -F _foo foo % foo --help --verbose --version And yet another source is an external command (including, a Perl script). The command receives two environment variables: "COMP_LINE" (string, raw command-line) and "COMP_POINT" (integer, cursor location). Program must split "COMP_LINE" into words, find the word to be completed, complete that, and return the list of words one per-line to STDOUT. An example: % cat foo-complete #!/usr/bin/perl use Complete::Bash qw(parse_cmdline format_completion); use Complete::Util qw(complete_array_elem); my ($words, $cword) = parse_cmdline(); my $res = complete_array_elem(array=>[qw/--help --verbose --version/], word=>$words->[$cword]); print format_completion($res); % complete -C foo-complete foo % foo --v --verbose --version This module provides routines for you to be doing the above. Instead of being called by bash as an external command every time user presses Tab, you can also use Perl to *generate* bash "complete" scripts for you. See Complete::BashGen. FUNCTIONS format_completion($shell_completion) -> array|str Format completion for output (for shell). Bash accepts completion reply in the form of one entry per line to STDOUT. Some characters will need to be escaped. This function helps you do the formatting, with some options. This function accepts an array (the result of a "complete_*" function), *or* a hash (which contains the completion array from a "complete_*" function as well as other metadata for formatting hints). Known keys: * "completion" (array): The completion array. You can put the result of "complete_*" function here. * "as" (str): Either "string" (the default) or "array" (to return array of lines instead of the lines joined together). Returning array is useful if you are doing completion inside "Term::ReadLine", for example, where the library expects an array. * "escmode" (str): Escaping mode for entries. Either "default" (most nonalphanumeric characters will be escaped), "shellvar" (like "default", but dollar sign "$" will not be escaped, convenient when completing environment variables for example), "filename" (currently equals to "default"), "option" (currently equals to "default"), or "none" (no escaping will be done). * "path_sep" (str): If set, will enable "path mode", useful for completing/drilling-down path. Below is the description of "path mode". In shell, when completing filename (e.g. "foo") and there is only a single possible completion (e.g. "foo" or "foo.txt"), the shell will display the completion in the buffer and automatically add a space so the user can move to the next argument. This is also true when completing other values like variables or program names. However, when completing directory (e.g. "/et" or "Downloads") and there is solely a single completion possible and it is a directory (e.g. "/etc" or "Downloads"), the shell automatically adds the path separator character instead ("/etc/" or "Downloads/"). The user can press Tab again to complete for files/directories inside that directory, and so on. This is obviously more convenient compared to when shell adds a space instead. The "path_sep" option, when set, will employ a trick to mimic this behaviour. The trick is, if you have a completion array of "['foo/']", it will be changed to "['foo/', 'foo/ ']" (the second element is the first element with added space at the end) to prevent bash from adding a space automatically. Path mode is not restricted to completing filesystem paths. Anything path-like can use it. For example when you are completing Java or Perl package name (e.g. "com.company.product.whatever" or "File::Spec::Unix") you can use this mode (with "path_sep" appropriately set to, e.g. "." or "::"). But note that in the case of "::" since colon is a word-breaking character in Bash by default, when typing you'll need to escape it (e.g. "mpath File\:\:Sp") or use it inside quotes (e.g. "mpath "File::Sp"). Arguments ('*' denotes required arguments): * shell_completion* => *array|hash* Result of shell completion. Either an array or hash. See function description for more details. Return value: Formatted string (or array, if `as` is set to `array`) (any) parse_cmdline($cmdline, $point, $word_breaks, $preserve_quotes) -> array Parse shell command-line for processing by completion routines. Currently only supports bash. This function basically converts COMP_LINE (str) and COMP_POINT (int) to become COMP_WORDS (array) and COMP_CWORD (int), like what bash supplies to shell functions. The differences with bash are: 1) quotes and backslashes are by default stripped, unless you specify "preserve_quotes"; 2) no word-breaking characters aside from whitespaces are used, unless you specify more word-breaking characters by setting "word_breaks". Caveats: * Due to the way bash parses the command line, the two below are equivalent: % cmd --foo=bar % cmd --foo = bar Because they both expand to "['--foo', '=', 'bar']", when "=" is used as a word-breaking character. But obviously "Getopt::Long" does not regard the two as equivalent. Arguments ('*' denotes required arguments): * cmdline => *str* Command-line, defaults to COMP_LINE environment. * point => *int* Point/position to complete in command-line, defaults to COMP_POINT. * preserve_quotes => *bool* (default: 0) Whether to preserve quotes, like bash does. * word_breaks => *str* Extra characters to break word at. In addition to space and tab. Example: "=:". Note that the characters won't break words if inside quotes or escaped. Return value: (array) Return a 2-element array: `[$words, $cword]`. `$words` is array of str, equivalent to `COMP_WORDS` provided by bash to shell functions. `$cword` is an integer, equivalent to `COMP_CWORD` provided by bash to shell functions. The word to be completed is at `$words->[$cword]`. Note that COMP_LINE includes the command name. If you want the command-line arguments only (like in `@ARGV`), you need to strip the first element from `$words` and reduce `$cword` by 1. TODOS format_completion(): Accept regex for path_sep. SEE ALSO Complete Complete::BashGen Other modules related to bash shell tab completion: Bash::Completion, Getopt::Complete. Term::Bash::Completion::Generator Programmable Completion section in Bash manual: HOMEPAGE Please visit the project's homepage at . SOURCE Source repository is at . BUGS Please report any bugs or feature requests on the bugtracker website When submitting a bug or request, please include a test-file or a patch to an existing test-file that illustrates the bug or desired feature. AUTHOR Steven Haryanto COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE This software is copyright (c) 2014 by Steven Haryanto. This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.