Remote scp completion that can handle spaces etc. in pathnames

Remote scp completion that can handle spaces etc. in pathnames

[Hannu Koivisto]

Greetings,

Let's say that there is a directory "foo bar" on host baz.  If I
try to copy it recursively with scp from baz to the current host, I
have to say ``scp -r baz:foo\\\ bar .''  That is, I need to
"double quote".  However, if I use zsh's completion to get me that
directory, i.e. I write ``scp -r baz:fo<tab>'', I get
``scp -r baz:foo\ bar/'', which does not work.

I use openssh 3.4p1 and zsh 4.0.4 on Debian GNU/Linux woody.  Is
this handled differently in a later (stable or development) version
and/or would this be easy to fix locally?

I also note that pathnames in remote commands are not completed
remotely, i.e. if I write ``ssh somehost ls f<tab>'', zsh completes
local filesystem entries beginning with f.  I wonder if this could
be smarter as well.

-- 
Hannu
Please don't send copies of list mail

Re: Remote scp completion that can handle spaces etc. in pathnames

[Oliver Kiddle]

On 13 Feb, you wrote:
> 
> Let's say that there is a directory "foo bar" on host baz.  If I
> try to copy it recursively with scp from baz to the current host, I
> have to say ``scp -r baz:foo\\\ bar .''  That is, I need to
> "double quote".  However, if I use zsh's completion to get me that
> directory, i.e. I write ``scp -r baz:fo<tab>'', I get
> ``scp -r baz:foo\ bar/'', which does not work.
> 
> I use openssh 3.4p1 and zsh 4.0.4 on Debian GNU/Linux woody.  Is
> this handled differently in a later (stable or development) version
> and/or would this be easy to fix locally?

Patch below should fix this. _ssh has changed a bit since 4.0.4 so I'm
not sure how easy it would be to modify for that.

> I also note that pathnames in remote commands are not completed
> remotely, i.e. if I write ``ssh somehost ls f<tab>'', zsh completes
> local filesystem entries beginning with f.  I wonder if this could
> be smarter as well.

It could possibly be done by somehow doing a temporary substitution of
_path_files by _remote_files but saving the original _path_files and
doing any other necessary fiddling would be more than a bit messy so I'm
not going to attempt it.

Oliver

Index: Completion/Unix/Command/_ssh
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/zsh/zsh/Completion/Unix/Command/_ssh,v
retrieving revision 1.18
diff -u -r1.18 _ssh
--- Completion/Unix/Command/_ssh	7 Jan 2003 08:49:16 -0000	1.18
+++ Completion/Unix/Command/_ssh	13 Feb 2003 14:29:21 -0000
@@ -17,9 +17,9 @@
     while _tags; do
       while _next_label files expl ${suf:-remote directory}; do
         [[ -n $suf ]] && compadd "$@" "$expl[@]" -d remdispf \
-	    ${remdispf%[*=@|]} && ret=0 
+	    ${(q)remdispf%[*=@|]} && ret=0 
 	compadd ${suf:+-S/} "$@" "$expl[@]" -d remdispd \
-	    ${remdispd%/} && ret=0
+	    ${(q)remdispd%/} && ret=0
       done
       (( ret )) || return 0
     done

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Re: Remote scp completion that can handle spaces etc. in pathnames

[Hannu Koivisto]

Oliver Kiddle <okiddle@yahoo.co.uk> writes:

> Patch below should fix this. _ssh has changed a bit since 4.0.4 so I'm
> not sure how easy it would be to modify for that.

Thanks!  It applied to 4.0.4 just fine.  However, I needed 
an additional modification to make it work with filenames such as
``[foo bar* |'' -- * and | didn't appear at all without this
modification.  I wonder if this breaks something elsewhere?  See
the modification below, within your patch.

>> I also note that pathnames in remote commands are not completed
>> remotely, i.e. if I write ``ssh somehost ls f<tab>'', zsh completes
>> local filesystem entries beginning with f.  I wonder if this could
>> be smarter as well.
>
> It could possibly be done by somehow doing a temporary substitution of
> _path_files by _remote_files but saving the original _path_files and
> doing any other necessary fiddling would be more than a bit messy so I'm
> not going to attempt it.

Ok, I can certainly live without such a feature.

> Oliver
>
> Index: Completion/Unix/Command/_ssh
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvsroot/zsh/zsh/Completion/Unix/Command/_ssh,v
> retrieving revision 1.18
> diff -u -r1.18 _ssh
> --- Completion/Unix/Command/_ssh	7 Jan 2003 08:49:16 -0000	1.18
> +++ Completion/Unix/Command/_ssh	13 Feb 2003 14:29:21 -0000
> @@ -17,9 +17,9 @@
>      while _tags; do
>        while _next_label files expl ${suf:-remote directory}; do
>          [[ -n $suf ]] && compadd "$@" "$expl[@]" -d remdispf \
> -	    ${remdispf%[*=@|]} && ret=0 
> +	    ${(q)remdispf%[*=@|]} && ret=0 

I replaced the above line with this:

+	    ${(q)remdispf%[=@]} && ret=0 

>  	compadd ${suf:+-S/} "$@" "$expl[@]" -d remdispd \
> -	    ${remdispd%/} && ret=0
> +	    ${(q)remdispd%/} && ret=0
>        done
>        (( ret )) || return 0
>      done

-- 
Hannu

Re: Remote scp completion that can handle spaces etc. in pathnames

[Oliver Kiddle]

Hannu Koivisto wrote:
> 
> Thanks!  It applied to 4.0.4 just fine.  However, I needed 
> an additional modification to make it work with filenames such as
> ``[foo bar* |'' -- * and | didn't appear at all without this
> modification.  I wonder if this breaks something elsewhere?  See
> the modification below, within your patch.

The completion for ssh uses ls -F on the remote machine to get the files
and then takes trailing *, =, |, / and @ characters to be the characters
added by ls -F to indicate the type of the file. I don't tend to have
file names ending in those characters and find it useful that it does
this. The ssh completion should perhaps honour the list_types style but
it'd still need ls -F to be able to do add `/' suffixes for directories.

Oliver

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Re: Remote scp completion that can handle spaces etc. in pathnames

[Hannu Koivisto]

Oliver Kiddle <okiddle@yahoo.co.uk> writes:

> The completion for ssh uses ls -F on the remote machine to get the files
> and then takes trailing *, =, |, / and @ characters to be the characters

Ah, so it does indeed.  I wonder if listing could be done in some
other, more robust way.  The availability of programs on the remote
machine obviously limits the possible ways...  Perhaps find could
be used?

> added by ls -F to indicate the type of the file. I don't tend to have
> file names ending in those characters and find it useful that it does
> this. The ssh completion should perhaps honour the list_types style but

I don't usually have file names ending in those characters either
(someone else whose files I need to copy might have, though) and
one of the reasons I use zsh is that in general it handles even the
corner cases well unlike so many other programs.  Programmers who
think "oh well, no one should put spaces to filenames anyway" and
do not handle the filenames allowed by the relevant standards are
the cause to problems like Y2k.  Of course, in this case zsh is at
the mercy of programs that make it hard to be robust, so it is
understandable if it cannot be done (I guess it would be nice if it
was documented somewhere, however).

-- 
Hannu