Re: Expanding interactively aliases

[Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>]

I wrote:
> expand-alias() {
>   # for safety, in case there's an = which will mess things up...
>   local alias=${LBUFFER#*=}
> 
>   if ! alias=$(alias $LBUFFER); then
>     zle beep
>     return 1
>   fi
> 
>   LBUFFER=${(Q)${alias#*=}}
> }
> zle -N expand-alias
> bindkey '^xa' expand-alias

Here's this as a completer, _expand_alias.  I decided there wasn't enough
common ground with _expand to put it there.

Could be tweaked:
 - checking for being the first word isn't good enough for knowing whether
   aliases should be expanded
 - probably need some other way of skipping it --- you may find you
   want to complete a command rather than expanding an alias
 - should probably be some style to force expansion in any position.
 - Sven can probably do it better anyway.

No documentation until all this gets decided.  Just stick it in your list
of completers around where _expand goes or would go.


## --- start --- ##
#autoload

local word tmp expl

# Completer to expand aliases.  Doesn't seem to have enough natural
# connection with normal expansion to put it in _expand.

if [[ "$funcstack[2]" = _prefix ]]; then
  word="$IPREFIX$PREFIX$SUFFIX"
else
  word="$IPREFIX$PREFIX$SUFFIX$ISUFFIX"
fi

[[ $CURRENT -eq 1 ]] || return 1

tmp="$(alias ${word#*=} 2>/dev/null)" || return 1

_wanted aliases expl alias compadd -UQ ${(Q)${tmp#*=}}
## --- end --- ##

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