This actually seems to do what I want:

  _expand() {
    local -a expl
    local expansion
    expansion="${(b)$( eval print -r -- $words[CURRENT] )}" 2> /dev/null ||
return 1
    _description expansions expl expansion
    compadd -QU "$expl[@]" -- $expansion
  }

This code can of course cause undesirable side effects when expanding
certain special parameters and command substitutions, but _expand suffers
from this, too.

Is there a way to locally disable special parameters and command
substitutions? Are there any other drawbacks to this approach? Why isn't
_expand doing something like this?


On Tue, Apr 2, 2024 at 10:12 AM Marlon Richert <marlon.richert@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I would expect _expand to behave by default like expand-word or
> list-expand, but it doesn't.
>
> For example, given default shell options, if `foo=*`, then expand-word
> and list-expand will complete `$foo` to `*` and `$~foo` to the files
> matched by `*` as a glob expression.
>
> However, no matter what zstyle options I set, _expand will either
> complete both of these to `\*` or both of these to the files globbed by
> `*`.
>
> By default, I would expect _expand to complete expressions in the same
> way as the shell substitutes them when evaluating the command line.
>
> Is there a combination of zstyles that makes _expand complete `$foo` to
> its literal value and `$~foo` to the files globbed by its value?
>
> If not, then I would like to see this being added somehow and preferably
> be made the default behavior.
>
>