(file) completion in compinstall

(file) completion in compinstall

[Andrej Borsenkow]

As I understand, compinstall is using vared to get input. Currently,
completion in the first prompt (for the file name) tries to complete
commands; I did not try any other (is there anything accept file names
that may be sensibly completed? I believe, everything else is menu
driven or free text input)

You understand, for any Zsh user hitting TAB becomes the second nature
... :-)

-andrej

Have a nice DOS!
B >>

Re: (file) completion in compinstall

[Peter Stephenson]

> As I understand, compinstall is using vared to get input. Currently,
> completion in the first prompt (for the file name) tries to complete
> commands; I did not try any other (is there anything accept file names
> that may be sensibly completed? I believe, everything else is menu
> driven or free text input)

I was going to remark on this, too, but forgot.  As far as I know,
completion usually just treats a line of vared input exactly the same way
as an ordinary command line.  This is very rarely the most useful
behaviour; a better default would be ordinary default completion,
i.e. assume a null command and treat the rest as command words.

There's some low-level support: compstate[vared] gets set to the name of
the parameter being edited and can be detected in completion functions.
However, there doesn't seem to be any support in the function system with
the exception of some commented-out code in _first, which would treat the
line being edited as if you were editing an assignment to that variable.  I
can't remember why that's not the default.

It might be possible to change this in compinstall by setting
compstate[context] directly, but come to think of it, I doubt if it
actually is possible outside a completion widget.  Even then, making the
value local would be unpleasant.

I'd prefer a more general solution to completion with vared, if Sven has
any ideas...

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@cambridgesiliconradio.com>
Cambridge Silicon Radio, Unit 300, Science Park, Milton Road,
Cambridge, CB4 0XL, UK                          Tel: +44 (0)1223 392070

Re: (file) completion in compinstall

[Sven Wischnowsky]

Peter Stephenson wrote:

> > As I understand, compinstall is using vared to get input. Currently,
> > completion in the first prompt (for the file name) tries to complete
> > commands; I did not try any other (is there anything accept file names
> > that may be sensibly completed? I believe, everything else is menu
> > driven or free text input)
> 
> I was going to remark on this, too, but forgot.  As far as I know,
> completion usually just treats a line of vared input exactly the same way
> as an ordinary command line.  This is very rarely the most useful
> behaviour; a better default would be ordinary default completion,
> i.e. assume a null command and treat the rest as command words.
> 
> There's some low-level support: compstate[vared] gets set to the name of
> the parameter being edited and can be detected in completion functions.
> However, there doesn't seem to be any support in the function system with
> the exception of some commented-out code in _first, which would treat the
> line being edited as if you were editing an assignment to that variable.  I
> can't remember why that's not the default.

Now that you say that... neither can I.

> It might be possible to change this in compinstall by setting
> compstate[context] directly, but come to think of it, I doubt if it
> actually is possible outside a completion widget.  Even then, making the
> value local would be unpleasant.

You can't, $compstate is not available there.

> I'd prefer a more general solution to completion with vared, if Sven has
> any ideas...

That's what $compcontext is for. Similar to what Functions/Misc/nslookup
does, you just do:

  local compcontext=compinstall

And then have a completion function with `#compdef compinstall'. There 
you either unconditionally complete for inside of compinstall or, like 
_nslookup, you first test `[[ -n "$compcontext" ]]' to see if you are
completing inside compinstall or its arguments.

Using the indirection ($compcontext gives a context which is looked up 
in $_comps) allows users to override the default implementation with
their own functions, as usual.

Is that enough and clean enough?

Bye
 Sven


--
Sven Wischnowsky                         wischnow@informatik.hu-berlin.de