implement_tab_completions.md

Implement tab completions

You can implement your own bash completions for commands you use a lot to save on typing.

An example ackrc based on my TIL

This completion script, reads your $HOME/.ackrc files and offers tab completions for your custom types.

$ ack <tab>
--yourcustomtype

An example ackrc based on my TIL

--type-set=mojo=.css,.pl,.pm,.html,.js,.tt,.ep,.conf
--type-set=conf=.conf

Would work as follows:

$ ack --<tab>
--mojo --conf

The complete implementation lifted from my github repository.

_ack()
{
    local cur prev opts
    COMPREPLY=()
    cur="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}"
    prev="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD-1]}"
    local opts=$(sed -n "s/--type-set=\([^']*\)=.*/--\1/p" $HOME/.ackrc )

    COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -W "${opts}" -- ${cur}) )
}

complete -F _ack ack

Since the tab completion is a programmatic implementation, there is a lot you can do to make your day to day work with bash easier.