/complete-alias

automagical shell alias completion;

Primary LanguageShellGNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

complete-alias

automagical shell alias completion;

  • works with all common aliases, even self-aliases;

  • one completion function, for all aliases;

  • alias completion as easy as type-and-tab;

install

  1. install dependency bash-completion;

    • linux:

      install bash-completion using system package manager:

      dnf install bash-completion     ##  fedora
      apt install bash-completion     ##  debian
      
    • macos (experimental):

      install bash-completion homebrew formulae version 2:

      brew install bash-completion@2
      
    • windows (experimental):

      see faq;

  2. append complete_alias to ~/.bash_completion:

    cat complete_alias >> ~/.bash_completion
    

usage

  1. add your own aliases in ~/.bash_completion:

    for example, to complete aliases foo, bar and baz:

    complete -F _complete_alias foo
    complete -F _complete_alias bar
    complete -F _complete_alias baz
    
  2. to complete an alias, type it and press <tab>;

example

to complete alias sctl aliased to systemctl:

$ alias sctl='systemctl'
$ echo "complete -F _complete_alias sctl" >> ~/.bash_completion
$ sctl <tab>
add-requires
add-wants
cancel
cat
condreload
...

compat

  • support for gnu bash(>=4.4) on linux is aimed;

  • support for older versions of bash is uncertain;

  • support for other shells is possible but unlikely;

  • support for other operating systems is experimental;

faq

  • how to install it on windows?

    support for windows is limited to msys2 and git for windows:

    • msys2:

      msys2 features pacman so you can install like linux:

      pacman -S bash-completion
      cat complete_alias >> ~/.bash_completion
      
    • git for windows:

      tldr: steal bash_completion and source it before complete_alias;

      git for windows provides git bash, which is a minimal environment based on msys2; for what matters here, git bash does not have package manager; so the above install procedure does not apply;

      the idea is, you must somehow get bash-completion and load it before complete-alias in a shell environment; for example, you can download bash-completion package from a msys2 mirror; however, the easiest solution i found to make things work is to simply download the main script bash_completion from its git repo; this does not give you its entirety, but is good enough to work;

      now you have 2 files: bash_completion and complete_alias; you need to source them in this order in ~/.bashrc:

      . ~/.bash_completion.sh
      . ~/.complete_alias.sh
      

      attention: here we renamed the files; we cannot use ~/.bash_completion because this is the very filename sourced by the very script; using this filename will cause an infinite loop;

      now install is complete; add your own aliases in ~/.complete_alias.sh;

license

The source code is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

Copyright (C) 2016-2018 Cyker Way

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.