I'm trying to create a Bash completion script for a Java program. A typical invocation of that program might look like this:
$ javaProgram -Dproperty=foo option1 option2
Part of my script will be to suggest the various Java properties that are available for this program (i.e., when the user types -D
, the script would suggest, say, property=
, allowing the user to then type the value).
I'd like the completion to not insert a space after the equals sign. However, when the user is typing the various options for the program (option1
and option2
in the above example), I'd like the script to do the completion, and insert a space when it is completed.
I'm new to Bash completion scripting, but I'm aware of the nospace
option for the complete
shell builtin. It doesn't seem to work for the compgen
builtin, though, which seems like what I want. I've tried using nospace
, and then explicitly including spaces at the end of the appropriate options, but they don't seem to be making it through.
Does anyone know how to get spaces at the end of some options, but no spaces at the end of others?
You can do it by removing spaces with the corresponding option, then add them back manually for the options where you want them, all using the simple -W
("wordlist") completion:
complete -o nospace -W 'Dproperty= "option1 " "option2 "' javaProgram
Autocompletion will now insert a space after option1
and option2
, but none after Dproperty=
.
The feature in in scp's bash completion mentioned by C4H5As that retains the added space is not the ampersand, that is just sed syntax for "replace with match".
You have to change the IFS so compgen does not split the input on spaces but on newlines or tabs:
local IFS=$'\t\n'
COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -W "$options" -- $cur) )
It would be helpful to see the code you have so far.
However, look at the completion code for scp
in /etc/bash_completion.d/ssh
if you have that. It puts spaces after local filenames but not after hostnames.
Dennis is right on the money, in the function you reference with complete -F _your_func
, you want something like this (taken from /etc/bash_completion):
# escape spaces; remove executables, aliases, pipes and sockets;
# add space at end of file names
COMPREPLY=( $( ssh -o 'Batchmode yes' $userhost \
command ls -aF1d "$path*" 2>/dev/null | \
sed -e "s/[][(){}<>\",:;^&!$&=?\`|\\ ']/\\\\\\\\\\\\&/g" \
-e 's/[*@|=]$//g' -e 's/[^\/]$/& /g' ) )
return 0
This particular example uses the -o nospace
option but adds the space manually. It's the last -e ('s/[^\/]$/& /g')
that adds the space. In this case it's adding only if the last parameter doesn't end in a slash (which would be a directory and have files to auto-complete).
The key difference seems to be adding an ampersand before the space. Try that and see if it works.
As the poster mentioned, it is not possible to pass the -o nospace
option to compgen
. One possibility is defining two functions where one inserts a call to compopt -o nospace
before calling compgen
(the other function would not).
Example:
__my_complete_no_space() {
local IFS=$' \t\n' cur_="${3-$cur}"
[[ $cur_ == *:* ]] && cur_="${cur#*:}"
compopt -o nospace
COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -P "${2-}" -W "$1" -S "${4-}" -- "$cur_") )
}
This is useful when the addition of space (or not) depends on the context of what needs to be completed.
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