Globbing on what the completion function would suggest?

Globbing on what the completion function would suggest?

[Richard Hartmann]

Hi all,

I want to do the following (pseudocode):

  apt-cache show expand_completion(*foo*)

where *foo* globbing on what the completion would suggest,
at this point. Unfortunately, I could not figure it out, by
myself.


Any pointers?
Richard

Re: Globbing on what the completion function would suggest?

[Mikael Magnusson]

2008/10/19 Richard Hartmann <richih.mailinglist@gmail.com>:
> Hi all,
>
> I want to do the following (pseudocode):
>
>  apt-cache show expand_completion(*foo*)
>
> where *foo* globbing on what the completion would suggest,
> at this point. Unfortunately, I could not figure it out, by
> myself.

I don't know if I've done anything special, but for example if I do
ls --[ab]<tab>, i get
---- option
--all         -- do not ignore entries starting with .
--almost-all  -- do not list implied . and ..
--author      -- with -l, print the author of each file
--block-size  -- use SIZE-byte blocks

I can't test the show completion since I don't use debian, but
apt-cache [md]*<tab> behaves the same way.

-- 
Mikael Magnusson

Re: Globbing on what the completion function would suggest?

[Richard Hartmann]

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 22:19, Mikael Magnusson <mikachu@gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't know if I've done anything special, but for example if I do
> ls --[ab]<tab>, i get

> I can't test the show completion since I don't use debian, but
> apt-cache [md]*<tab> behaves the same way.

I don't know what options you have set, but on 4.3.6 on Debian
unstable, this does not complete anything, for me.


I should have been clearer in my initial email: I don't want to do
this interactively, I want to do this on the CLI or in a script.


Richard

Re: Globbing on what the completion function would suggest?

[Bart Schaefer]

On Oct 19, 11:26pm, Richard Hartmann wrote:
}
} I should have been clearer in my initial email: I don't want to do
} this interactively, I want to do this on the CLI or in a script.

In order to do this, you'd have to write a wrapper function that sets
up a fake completion context (the compstate hash, the words array,
the values of all the ZLE special variables, and so on), and that
also defines compset and compadd functions, etc.  Then you'd have to
examine whatever arguments were passed to your dummy compadd after
you invoke the completer function.

Or equivalently you need to re-implement all the completion modules in
non-interactive versions that don't need the ZLE line context.

A third possibility is to do what comptest.zsh in the test suite does:
Create a psuedo-terminal with zpty running an interactive shell, send
it a partial command line and a list-choices keystroke to produce a
completion listing, and then read back the results.

Re: Globbing on what the completion function would suggest?

[Richard Hartmann]

On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 17:22, Bart Schaefer <schaefer@brasslantern.com> wrote:

> [three possibilies]

I fear the work involved is far greater than the gain, so I will pass.


Thanks for your detailed answer, though!
Richard