help with _match, globcomplete etc.

[Oliver Kiddle <opk@u.genie.co.uk>]

Sven Wischnowsky wrote:

> (there is almost no real reason to use
> GLOB_COMPLETE nowadays, the _match completer should be better -- and
> configurable).

I've just been trying to fathom out what is going on with respect to
when zsh expands, menu completes expansions and doesn't expand. It all
is a little bit complicated, especially as the behaviour is controlled
by a mix of options, styles and the choice of widget that tab is bound
to.

Part of the trouble is the way zsh's shell expansion works. If you use
expand-or-complete, I can't see any way of customising what is and isn't
expanded - variables, globs and history are, tildes are not. The
behaviour which I would like is that variables are not expanded unless I
specifically use a widget bound to '^X$' - like tcsh's expand-variables
widget. Would it be possible for the shell expansion used in completion
to be controlled by a style?

The reason I still use glob_complete is that it allows some action when
completing glob patterns (menu completion though I'd prefer expansion in
the case of files) while not expanding variables.

I can however see that the _match completer is better, mainly in that I
can choose menu completion where only one argument is required and
expansion where many are required.

Another thing which I would like to configure with expansion is when
there is only one match, I'd prefer if the space suffix was not added -
this is one of the things that makes the variable expansion annoying.
Ideally, the suffix would be as if normal completion was used so
directories would get a '/'.

Oliver Kiddle

PS. Sorry about sending the wrapped patch before - I forgot to disable
wrapping in my mailer. I can resend it if that would be useful to
anyone.