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Incomplete Path Expansion (Completion) For Bash
bash-complete-partial-path enhances the path completion in Bash (on Linux, macOS with gnu-sed, and Windows with MSYS) by adding incomplete path expansion, similar to Zsh. This is useful if you want this time-saving feature in Bash, without having to switch to Zsh.
Here is how this works. When the Tab key is pressed, bash-complete-partial-path assumes each component is incomplete and tries to expand it. Let's say you want to navigate to /usr/share/applications . You can type cd /u/s/app , press Tab , and bash-complete-partial-path should expand it into cd /usr/share/applications . If there are conflicts, only the path without conflicts is completed upon pressing Tab . For instance Ubuntu users should have quite a few folders in /usr/share that begin with "app" so in this case, typing cd /u/s/app will only expand the /usr/share/ part.
Here is another example of deeper incomplete file path expansion. On an Ubuntu system type cd /u/s/f/t/u , press Tab , and it should be automatically expanded to cd /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu .
Features include:
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Escapes special characters
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If the user starts the path with quotes, character escaping is not applied and instead, the quote is closed with a matching character after expending the path
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Properly expands ~ expressions
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If bash-completion package is already in use, this code will safely override its _filedir function. No extra configuration is required, just make sure you source this project after the main bash-completion.
Check out the project page for more information and a demo screencast.
Install bash-complete-partial-path
The bash-complete-partial-path installation instructions specify downloading the bash_completion script directly. I prefer to grab the Git repository instead, so I can update it with a simple git pull , therefore the instructions below will use this method of installing bash-complete-partial-path. You can use the official instructions if you prefer them.
- Install Git (needed to clone the bash-complete-partial-path Git repository).
In Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint and so on, use this command to install Git:
sudo apt install git
- Clone the bash-complete-partial-path Git repository in
~/.config/:
cd ~/.config && git clone https://github.com/sio/bash-complete-partial-path
- Source
~/.config/bash-complete-partial-path/bash_completionin your~/.bashrcfile,
Open ~/.bashrc with a text editor. You can use Gedit for example:
gedit ~/.bashrc
At the end of the ~/.bashrc file add the following (as a single line):
[ -s "$HOME/.config/bash-complete-partial-path/bash_completion" ] && source "$HOME/.config/bash-complete-partial-path/bash_completion"
I mentioned adding it at the end of the file because this needs to be included below (after) the main bash-completion from your ~/.bashrc file. So make sure you don't add it above the original bash-completion as it will cause issues.
4. Source ~/.bashrc:
source ~/.bashrc
And you're done, bash-complete-partial-path should now be installed and ready to be used.
via: https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/07/incomplete-path-expansion-completion.html