Re: Prefixed backslash removed when completing command

[Mikael Auno <auno@kth.se>]

Peter Stephenson wrote:
> Mikael Auno wrote:
>> Hi. I don't know if prefixing a command with a backslash to suppress
>> alias expansion is a intentional feature or not. If it is though, tab
>> completing a (complete or incomplete) command prefixed with a
>> backslash ought not remove the backslash. Current behavior seems to
>> be to complete something like "\mpla" to "mplayer" and not to
>> "\mplayer" as I would expect.
>>
>> I would be happy to try to fix it myself if no one has time to do it.
>> A pointer on where to start looking in that case would be good though
>> as I'm not at all familiar with the code of Zsh.
>
> You're quite right that this should work better, but I suspect fixing it is
> a real pig.  Quoting is one of the messiest parts of completion (regular
> viewers will know this is rather a strong statement).  I think fixing it
> properly by leaving all quoting in place isn't going to be easy (to put it
> mildly).
>
> I think you have a workaround, though: use an initial single quote.  Not
> only does that get kept, the closing single quote is put in place
> afterwards.  Is this good enough?  (It would be good to document this but
> goodness knows where it goes.)

(I did not see this reply until now as I am not on the list and as such 
did not receive the reply directly. I only saw it now as I happened to 
find the online archive of the mailing list.)

If I am not completely misunderstanding your reply, I think you 
misunderstood my issue. My issue has nothing to do with either single or 
double quotes (they are only there in the original message to separate 
the examples from the rest of the text), but with the backslash.

When I try to tab complete something starting with a leading backslash, 
e.g. \mpla, then it is completed to mplayer (without a leading 
backslash) instead of \mplayer (with a leading backslash) as I would expect.

I hope this clarifies the issue.

Mikael Auno