Re: implementing a control for completing filenames with a defined list of tokens

[Eric Smith <Eric.Smith@biovolt.nl>]

Thank you Bart.

I want to use this completion facility at the start of file (a
dir) names and also *in the middle* of the name. 
So the tags may appear anywhere in the filename.
So I could type foobar__^K
for example and the function will complete with my tokens which all begin with a double underscore.

$ cat tokenfile 
__job__1403-whatever__
__article__
__finance__
__contract__
__published__
__project-foo__ 
__job__1402-visit__

How may I adapt your suggestions for this?

Thanks a lot.

Eric

Bart Schaefer wrote on Mon-02-Dec 13  4:58PM
> On Dec 2,  3:26pm, Eric Smith wrote:
> } Subject: implementing a control for completing filenames with a defined li
> }
> } I would like to define a completion widget to complete filenames with
> } a defined list of tokens. The widget would look up in a list the
> } tokens and suggest these (ideally in order) to the user.
> 
> This one is about as straightforward as it's possible to get.
> 
> First you need a function that reads tokenfile and passes the lines
> therein as arguments to the "compadd" builtin.
> 
>     _tokens() { compadd ${(f)"$(<tokenfile)"} }
> 
> Next you need a completion widget.  There's a ready-made function for
> creating completion widgets, called _generic.
> 
>     zle -C token-completion complete-word _generic
>     bindkey ^K token-completion
> 
> (^K is normally kill-line so you might want to pick another binding.)
> 
> Finally tell the completion system that when the token-completer is
> invoked, it should use the _tokens function to supply the matches:
> 
>     zstyle ':completion:token-completion:*' completer _tokens
> 
> And you're done.  If you eventually want it to complete other things, you
> can append more functions to the zstyle.
> 
> Another way to do this is to create a file in your $fpath having a name
> starting with underscore, and begin that file with a "#compdef -k ..."
> line.  That could be as simple as this:
> 
> ---- 8< ---- snip ---- 8< ----
> #compdef -k complete-word ^K
> 
> _tokens() { compadd ${(f)"$(<tokenfile)"} }
> _generic _tokens
> ---- 8< ---- snip ---- 8< ----
> 
> However, that will redefine the _tokens function on each completion.  A
> slightly better formulation would be to have the file redefine the same
> function as its file name.  If the file is named "_token_completion":
> 
> ---- 8< ---- snip ---- 8< ----
> #compdef -k complete-word ^K
> 
> _tokens() { compadd ${(f)"$(<tokenfile)"} }
> _token_completion() { _generic _tokens }
> _token_completion
> ---- 8< ---- snip ---- 8< ----
> 
> It's probably not necessary to go this far when _tokens is so simple,
> but if you eventually write something more involved it's a good pattern.
> 
> Note that with the file you don't need the zstyle: passing _tokens as an
> argument to _generic has the equivalent effect.  You could omit _tokens
> there and instead have the style, just replace "token-completion" in the
> style pattern with the name of the file.

-- 
Eric Smith