zshcompsys - zsh completion system
DESCRIPTION
This describes the shell code for the new completion sys
tem. It consists of various shell functions; those begin
ning `comp' are to be called directly by the user, while
those beginning `_' are called by the completion code.
The shell functions of the second set which implement com
pletion behaviour and which may be bound to keystrokes,
are referred to as `widgets'.
INITIALIZATION
If the system was installed completely, it should be
enough to call the shell function compinit from your ini
tialization file; see the next section. However, the
function compinstall can be run by a user to configure
various aspects of the completion system.
Usually, compinstall will insert code into .zshrc,
although if that is not writable it will save it in
another file and tell you that file's location. Note that
it is up to you to make sure that the lines added to
.zshrc are actually run; you may, for example, need to
move them to an earlier place in the file if .zshrc usu
ally returns early. So long as you keep them all together
(including the comment lines at the start and finish), you
can rerun compinstall and it will correctly locate and
modify these lines. Note, however, that any code you add
to this section by hand is likely to be lost if you rerun
compinstall, although lines using the command `zstyle'
should be gracefully handled.
The new code will take effect next time you start the
shell, or run .zshrc by hand; there is also an option to
make them take effect immediately. However, if compin
stall has removed definitions, you will need to restart
the shell to see the changes.
To run compinstall you will need to make sure it is in a
directory mentioned in your fpath parameter, which should
already be the case if zsh was properly configured as long
as your startup files do not remove the appropriate direc
tories from fpath. Then it must be autoloaded (`autoload
-U compinstall' is recommended). You can abort the
installation any time you are being prompted for informa
tion, and your .zshrc will not be altered at all; changes
only take place right at the end, where you are specifi
cally asked for confirmation.
This section describes the use of compinit to initialize
completion for the current session when run directly by
the user; if you have run compinstall it will be called
automatically from your .zshrc.
To initialize the system, the function compinit should be
in a directory mentioned in the fpath parameter, and
should be autoloaded (`autoload -U compinit' is recom
mended), and then run simply as `compinit'. This will
define a few utility functions, arrange for all the neces
sary shell functions to be autoloaded, and will then
re-define all widgets that do completion to use the new
system. If you use the menu-select widget, which is part
of the zsh/complist module, you should make sure that that
module is loaded before the call to compinit so that that
widget is also re-defined. If completion styles (see
below) are set up to perform expansion as well as comple
tion by default, and the TAB key is bound to
expand-or-complete, compinit will rebind it to com
plete-word; this is necessary to use the correct form of
expansion.
Should you need to use the original completion commands,
you can still bind keys to the old widgets by putting a
`.' in front of the widget name, e.g. `.expand-or-com
plete'.
To speed up the running of compinit, it can be made to
produce a dumped configuration which will be read in on
future invocations; this is the default, although it can
be turned off by calling compinit with the option -D. The
dumped file is .zcompdump in the same directory as the
startup files (i.e. $ZDOTDIR or $HOME); alternatively, an
explicit file name can be given by `compinit -d dumpfile'.
On the next call to compinit, it will read the dumped file
instead of performing a full initialization.
If the number of completion files changes, compinit will
recognise this and produce a new dump file. However, if
the name of a function or the arguments in the first line
of a #compdef function (as described below) change, it is
easiest to delete the dump file by hand so that compinit
will re-create it the next time it is run. The check per
formed to see if there are new functions can be omitted by
giving the option -C. In this case the dump file will
only be created if there isn't one already.
The dumping is actually done by another function, comp
dump, but you will only need to run this yourself if you
change the configuration (e.g. using compdef) and then
want to dump the new one. The name of the old dumped file
will be remembered for this purpose.
directory where completion functions can be found; this is
only necessary if they are not already in the function
search path.
For security reasons compinit also checks if the comple
tion system would use files not owned by root or by the
current user, or files in directories that are world- or
group-writable or that are not owned by root or by the
current user. If such files or directories are found,
compinit will ask if the completion system should really
be used. To avoid these tests and make all files found be
used without asking, use the option -u, and to make
compinit silently ignore all insecure files and directo
ries use the option -i. This security check is skipped
entirely when the -C option is given.
The security check can be retried at any time by running
the function compaudit. This is the same check used by
compinit, but when it is executed directly any changes to
fpath are made local to the function so they do not per
sist. The directories to be checked may be passed as
arguments; if none are given, compaudit uses fpath and
_compdir to find completion system directories, adding
missing ones to fpath as necessary. To force a check of
exactly the directories currently named in fpath, set
_compdir to an empty string before calling compaudit or
compinit.
Autoloaded files
The convention for autoloaded functions used in completion
is that they start with an underscore; as already men
tioned, the fpath/FPATH parameter must contain the direc
tory in which they are stored. If zsh was properly
installed on your system, then fpath/FPATH automatically
contains the required directories for the standard func
tions.
For incomplete installations, if compinit does not find
enough files beginning with an underscore (fewer than
twenty) in the search path, it will try to find more by
adding the directory _compdir to the search path. If that
directory has a subdirectory named Base, all subdirecto
ries will be added to the path. Furthermore, if the sub
directory Base has a subdirectory named Core, compinit
will add all subdirectories of the subdirectories is to
the path: this allows the functions to be in the same for
mat as in the zsh source distribution.
When compinit is run, it searches all such files accessi
ble via fpath/FPATH and reads the first line of each of
them. This line should contain one of the tags described
below. Files whose first line does not start with one of
system and will not be treated specially.
The tags are:
#compdef names...
The file will be made autoloadable and the function
defined in it will be called when completing names,
each of which is either the name of a command whose
arguments are to be completed or one of a number of
special contexts in the form -context- described
below for the _complete function.
Each name may also be of the form `cmd=service'.
This is used by functions that offer multiple ser
vices, i.e. different completion behaviour for mul
tiple commands. Such a string makes the completion
system call the function when completing arguments
for the command `cmd', setting the parameter $ser
vice to the string `service'. The function can
then use that parameter to decide what to complete.
#compdef -p pattern
The file will be made autoloadable and the function
defined in it will be called when completing for a
command whose name matches the given pattern (a
standard globbing pattern). Note that only one
pattern may be given.
#compdef -P pattern
Like the previous one, but the function will be
called only if no completion function for the com
mand on the line could be found.
#compdef -k style key-sequences...
This can be used to bind special completion func
tions to the key-sequences specified. It creates a
widget behaving like the builtin widget style,
which must be one of those that perform completion,
namely complete-word, delete-char-or-list,
expand-or-complete, expand-or-complete-prefix,
list-choices, menu-complete, menu-expand-or-com
plete, or reverse-menu-complete. If the zsh/com
plist module is loaded (see zshmodules(1)), the
same happens to the menu-select widget.
The widget is then bound to all the key-sequences
given, if any: when one of the key-sequences is
typed, the function in the file will be invoked to
generate the matches. Note that a key will not be
re-bound if if it already was (that is, was bound
to something other than undefined-key). The widget
created has the same name as the file and can be
bound to any other keys using bindkey as usual.
This is similar to -k, with the same style and
key-sequences arguments, preceded by a string giv
ing the name of a widget. In this case only one
key-sequences argument may be given, but the entire
set of three arguments may be repeated with a dif
ferent set of arguments. In particular, the wid
get-name must be distinct in each set. It should
begin with `_', else one will be added, and should
not clash with the name of any existing widget:
names based on the name of the function are most
useful. For example,
#compdef -K _foo_complete complete-word "^X^C" \
_foo_list list-choices "^X^D"
(all on one line) defines a widget _foo_complete
for completion, bound to `^X^C', and a widget
_foo_list for listing, bound to `^X^D'.
#autoload [ options ]
This is used for files defining utility functions
that are not to be called directly as completion
functions but should be loaded automatically when
invoked. Typically they are to be called from
within one of the completion functions.
The options will be given to the autoload builtin
command when making the function autoloaded. Most
often, this will be +X to force the function to be
loaded immediately. Note that the -U flag is
always implicitly added.
The # is part of the tag name and no white space is
allowed after it. The #compdef tags use the compdef func
tion described below; the main difference is that the name
of the function is supplied implicitly.
Note also that the functions for the completion system
assume that the KSH_AUTOLOAD option is not set and cannot
be loaded when it is set. To avoid having to unset
KSH_AUTOLOAD, you can instead use one or more zwc file(s)
which have been created with the command zcompile -z to
load the functions for the completion system; see zsh
builtins(1). This forces the functions to be autoloaded
the way zsh normally loads functions.
Functions
The compinit file defines the following function, which
may also be called directly by the user.
compdef [ -an ] function names...
compdef -p [ -a ] function pattern
compdef -P [ -a ] function pattern
compdef -k [ -an ] function style key-sequences...
compdef -K [ -an ] function name style key-sequences ...
The first form tells the completion system to call
the given function when completing for the contexts
or commands whose names are given: this is like
the #compdef tag unless the first word contains an
equal sign. In this case all words have to be of
the form `cmd=service' where service is the name of
a command or of a service defined by an autoloaded
function with the #compdef tag and an argument of
the form `cmd=service'. This kind of use makes the
arguments of the cmds be completed as those for the
services.
If the -n option is given, any existing completion
behaviour for particular contexts or commands will
not be altered. These definitions can be deleted
by giving the -d option as in the second form.
The form with -p is similar to the first, but func
tion will be called for all commands whose name
matches the pattern; this is like the #compdef -p
function tag.
The form with -P is like the third, but the func
tion will be called only if no function for the
command itself was found or if one was found and it
set the _compskip parameter to a value not contain
ing the substring patterns.
The form with -k defines a widget with the same
name as the function which will be called for each
of the key-sequences; this is like the #compdef -k
tag. The function should generate the completions
needed and will otherwise behave like the builtin
widget whose name is given as the style argument.
The widgets usable for this are: complete-word,
delete-char-or-list, expand-or-complete,
expand-or-complete-prefix, list-choices, menu-com
plete, menu-expand-or-complete, and
reverse-menu-complete, as well as menu-select if
the zsh/complist module is loaded. The option -n
prevents the key being bound if it is already to
bound to something other than undefined-key.
The form with -K is similar and defines multiple
widgets based on the same function, each of which
requires the set of three arguments name, style and
key-sequences, where the latter two are as for -k
and the first must be a unique widget name begin
ning with an underscore.
makes the function autoloadable (exactly equivalent
to autoload -U function).
The compdef function is the place to turn to when one
wants to define what the completion system should complete
for a certain command. The function named can of course
be one of the functions supplied or one written by the
user. For example, if one has a command foo that gets
process identifiers as arguments, one could do:
compdef _pids foo
using the _pids function from the distribution to generate
the process identifiers. Not also the _gnu_generic func
tion described below, which can be used to complete
options for commands that understand the `--help' option.
COMPLETION SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
This section gives a short overview of how the completion
system works, and then more detail on how users can con
figure how and when matches are generated.
Overview
When completion is attempted somewhere on a command line
the completion system first tries to find out the context
where completion was tried. The context depends on such
things as the name of the command when completing an argu
ment, and possibly also the name of an option when com
pleting an argument to that option.
The `context' of a completion is a string consisting of
multiple fields. This is used to look up styles that can
be used to configure the completion system. Since it is
not possible to build the whole context string in advance,
completion functions may modify some of the fields and
hence the context used for lookup may vary during the same
call to the completion system.
The context string always consists of the following
fields, separated by colons and with a leading colon
before the first:
· The literal string completion, saying that this
style is used by the completion system.
· The function; in many cases this field will be
blank, but when the completion system is called
from other functions, like predict-on or one of the
functions in the Command directory of the distribu
tion, this field contains the name of that
· The completer currently active, which is the name
of the function without the leading underscore. A
`completer' is in overall control of how completion
is to be performed; `complete' is the basic one for
ordinary completion, but completers may perform
various related tasks such as correction, or modify
the behaviour of a later completer (see the section
`Control Functions' below for more information).
· The context or command. This is either one of the
special context names such as -condition- as
explained for the _complete completer below, or the
name of the command we are completing arguments
for. Completion functions for commands that have
sub-commands usually modify this field to contain
the name of the command followed by a minus sign
and the sub-command (e.g. the completion function
for the cvs command sets this field to strings such
as cvs-add when completing for the add sub-com
mand).
· The argument, describing which argument we are com
pleting. Normally this is either a string of the
form argument-n, where n is the number of the argu
ment or it is a string of the form option-opt-n
when completing the n'th argument of the option
opt.
· The tag. Tags are used to discriminate between the
types of matches a completion function can generate
in a certain context.
As an example, the context name
:completion::complete:dvips:option-o-1:files
says that normal completion was attempted on an argument
of the dvips command (more precisely: completion was
attempted on the first argument after the -o option) and
the completion function will generate filenames for this
context.
In many of the possible contexts the completion system can
generate matches, often multiple types of matches. These
types are represented as simple names called `tags'. The
completion system will decide internally what sort of tags
are allowed; a list of the standard possibilities is given
used by the completion function, the `tag-order' style for
the appropriate context may be set, as described in the
list of standard styles below. Only those types of
matches whose tags were selected by this style will be
produced, and in the order given, although the default is
to try all relevant tags in an order determined by the
particular completion in use.
The _complete_help bindable command described in the sec
tion `Bindable Commands' below can be invoked to find out
the context and tag names and styles used at a particular
point in completion. It shows the list of contexts and
tags that would be used in if completion were tried at the
current cursor position. Hence one can easily find out
all the information needed to change the behaviour of the
tag-order style for a particular context.
Completion behaviour can be modified by various other
styles defined with the zstyle builtin command (see zsh
modules(1)). When looking up styles the completion system
uses full context names, including the tag.
Styles determine such things as how the matches are gener
ated; some of them correspond to shell options (for exam
ple, the use of menu completion), but styles provide more
specific control. They can have any number of strings as
their value. Looking up the value of a style therefore
consists of two things: the context, which may be matched
as a pattern, and the name of the style itself, which must
be given exactly.
For example, many completion functions can generate
matches in a simple and a verbose form and use the verbose
style to decide which form should be used. To make all
such functions use the verbose form, put
zstyle ':completion:*' verbose yes
in one of the startup files like .zshrc; this sort of
style can also be configured with the compinstall func
tion. This definition simply means that the verbose style
has yes as its value in every context inside the comple
tion system. If the context pattern were `*', the verbose
style would have this value anywhere the style mechanism
is used, not just in completion.
As a more specific example, the completion function for
the kill builtin command uses the verbose style to decide
if jobs and processes are listed only as job numbers and
process identifiers or if they are listed with the full
job texts and the command lines of the processes (the lat
ter is achieved by calling the ps command). To make this
builtin list the matches only as numbers one could call:
Furthermore, if one wanted to see the command lines for
processes but not the job texts one could use the fact
that the context name contains the tag name when styles
are looked up. As the function for the kill builtin com
mand uses the tags jobs and processes, we can use:
zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*:jobs' verbose no
To have more control over when certain values for styles
are used one can use the special parameters available in
completion widgets (see see zshcompwid(1))) and the -e
option to zstyle that makes the value be evaluated when
looked up. For example, to make the completer style have
a different value when completing for the cvs command, one
could use the words special array:
zstyle -e ':completion:*' completer '
if [[ $words[1] = cvs ]]; then
reply=(_complete)
else
reply=(_complete _approximate)
fi'
One should be careful not to use too complicated code with
this option, at least for the styles that are looked up
quite often. These are basically those that define some
global completion behaviour but allow that to be different
for all matches or groups of matches (such as the menu and
list-rows-first styles). Alternatively one can always use
a less general pattern for the context than in the example
above and use a second call to zstyle with a generic pat
tern and without using the -e option to define the default
behaviour.
Note that the order in which styles are defined does not
matter; the style mechanism uses the most specific possi
ble match for a particular style to determine the set of
values. More precisely, strings are preferred over pat
terns (for example, `:completion::complete:foo' is more
specific than `:completion::complete:*'), and longer pat
terns are preferred over shorter patterns.
As with tags, completion functions can use any style they
choose, so there can't be a complete list. However, the
following two sections list those tags and styles that are
used in many places of the completion system.
Standard Tags
Here are the tags currently used by the completion system.
Some of them are only used when looking up styles and do
not refer to a particular type of match.
used to look up the users-hosts style
all-expansions
used by the _expand completer when adding the sin
gle string containing all possible expansions
all-files
for the names of all files (as distinct from a par
ticular subset, see the globbed-files tag).
arguments
when an argument of a command may be completed
arrays for names of array parameters
association-keys
for keys of associative arrays; used when complet
ing inside a subscript of a parameter of this type
bookmarks
when completing bookmarks (e.g. for URLs and the
zftp function suite)
builtins
for names of builtin commands
characters
used for commands like stty when completing charac
ters; also used when completing character classes
after a opening bracket
colormapids
for X colormap ids
colors for color names
commands
for names of external commands and names of
sub-commands (used by some commands like cvs)
contexts
for contexts used by the zstyle builtin command
corrections
used by the _approximate and _correct completers
for the possible corrections
cursors
for cursor names used by X programs
default
used to look up default values for various styles
that may also be set for tags that are used when
only the function field of the context name is set
up
descriptions
used when looking up the value of the format style
for descriptions
devices
for names of device special files
directories
for names of directories
directory-stack
for entries in the directory stack
displays
for X display names
domains
for network domains
expansions
used by the _expand completer for individual possi
bilities resulting from expansion of a word
extensions
for X server extensions
file-descriptors
for the numbers of open file descriptors
files the generic file-matching tag used by completion
functions that can complete the names of some kind
of file
fonts used for X font names
functions
names of functions, normally shell functions
although certain commands may understand other
kinds of function
globbed-files
for names of files matching the glob pattern used
by completion functions that expect a certain type
of file
groups used when completing names of user groups
history-words
for words from the history
indexes
used for array indexes
jobs used for jobs
keymaps
for names of zsh keymaps
keysyms
for names of X keysyms
libraries
for names of system libraries
limits for system limits
local-directories
for names of directories which are subdirectories
of the current working directory when completing
for the cd and related builtin commands
manuals
for names of manual pages
maps for map names (e.g. NIS maps)
messages
used to look up the format style for messages
modifiers
for names of X modifiers
modules
for modules (e.g. zsh modules)
my-accounts
used to look up the users-hosts style
named-directories
for named directories (you wouldn't have guessed
that, would you?)
names for all kinds of names
nicknames
for nicknames of NIS maps
options
for command options
original
used by the _approximate, _correct and _expand
other-accounts
used to look up the users-hosts style
packages
for packages (e.g. rpm or installed Debian pack
ages)
parameters
for names of parameters
path-directories
for names of directories found by searching the
cdpath array when completing for the cd and related
builtin commands
paths used to look up the values of the expand, ambiguous
and special-dirs styles
pods for perl pods (documentation files)
ports for communication ports
prefixes
for prefixes (like those of a URL)
printers
for printer names
processes
for process identifiers
processes-names
used to look up the command style when generating
the names of processes for killall
sequences
for sequences (e.g. mh sequences)
sessions
for sessions in the zftp function suite
signals
for signal names
strings
for strings (e.g. the replacement strings for the
cd builtin command)
styles for styles used by the zstyle builtin command
tags for tags (e.g. rpm tags)
for makefile targets
types for types of whatever (e.g. address types for the
xhost command)
urls used to look up the urls and local styles when com
pleting URLs
users for usernames
values when completing a value out of a set of values (or
a list of such values)
version
used by _call_program to look up the command to run
to determine the installed version of various other
commands (such as diff and make).
warnings
used to look up the format style for warnings
widgets
for zsh widget names
windows
for IDs of X windows
zsh-options
for shell options
Standard Styles
Here are the names of the styles used by the completion
system. Note that the values of several of these styles
represent boolean values; here, any of the strings `true',
`on', `yes', and `1' can be used for the truth value
`true' and the strings `false', `off', `no', and `0' are
interpreted as `false'. The behavior for any other value
is undefined unless the description for the particular
style mentions other possible values; in particular, the
default value may be either on or off if the style is not
set.
Some of these styles are tested for every tag used to add
possible matches and for the default tag (most notably
menu, list-colors and the styles controlling the comple
tion listing like list-packed and last-prompt). When
tested for the default tag, only the function field of the
context will be set up, so the default value will normally
be set like:
zstyle ':completion:*:default' menu ...
This is tested for the default tag and the tags
used when generating matches. If it is set to
`true' for at least one match which is the same as
the string on the line, this match will immediately
be accepted.
When completing pathnames (where it is looked up
for the paths tag), this style also accepts any
number of patterns as the value. If this is used,
pathnames matching one of these patterns will be
accepted immediately even if the command line con
tains some more partially typed pathname components
and these match no file under the directory
accepted.
Note that this is also used by the _expand com
pleter to decide if words beginning with a tilde or
parameter expansion should be expanded. This means
that if, for example, there are parameters foo and
foobar, the string `$foo' will only be expanded if
accept-exact is set to `true'.
add-space
This style is used by the _expand completer. If it
is `true' (the default), a space will be inserted
after all words resulting from the expansion
(except for directory names which get a slash).
The value may also be the string `file' to make the
completer add a space only to names of existing
files. Finally, the `true' values and `file' may
be combined with `subst' to keep the completer from
adding a space when the resulting words were gener
ated by expanding a substitution of the form
`$(...)' or `${...}'.
It is also used by the _prefix completer as a sim
ple boolean value to decide if a space should be
inserted before the suffix.
ambiguous
This applies when completing non-final components
of filename paths. If it is set, the cursor is
left after the first ambiguous component, even if
menu completion is in use. It is tested with the
paths tag.
assign-list
When completing after an equals sign, the comple
tion system normally completes only one filename.
In some cases, particularly for certain parameters
such as PATH, a list of filenames separated by
colons is required. This style can be set to a
list of patterns matching the names of such
The default is to complete lists when the word on
the line already contains a colon.
auto-description
If set, this style's value will be used as the
description for options which are not described by
the completion functions, but that have exactly one
argument. The sequence `%d' in the value will be
replaced by the description for this argument.
Depending on personal preferences, it may be useful
to set this style to something like `specify: %d'.
Note that this may not work for some commands.
avoid-completer
This is used by the _all_matches completer to
decide if the string consisting of all matches
should be added to the list currently being gener
ated. Its value is a list of names of completers.
If any of these is the name of the completer that
generated the matches in this completion, the
string will not be added.
The default value for this style is `_expand
_old_list _correct _approximate', i.e. it contains
the completers for which a string with all matches
will almost never be wanted.
cache-path
This style defines the path where any cache files
containing dumped completion data are stored.
Defaults to `$ZDOTDIR/.zcompcache', or
`$HOME/.zcompcache' if $ZDOTDIR is not defined.
The completion layer will not be used unless the
use-cache style is set.
call-command
Currently this is only used by the function com
pleting make targets. If it is set to `true' and
the installed version of the make command allows
it, make is called in a way to generate all possi
ble targets. The default value of this style is
`false' because calling make can potentially take a
very long time and in some cases may even cause
actions from the makefile be executed despite the
options given to make.
command
In many places, completion functions need to call
external commands to generate the list of comple
tions. This style can be used to override the com
mand which is called in some such cases. The ele
ments of the value are joined with spaces to form a
with a hyphen, in which case the usual command will
be added to the end; this is most useful for
putting `builtin' or `command' in front to make
sure the appropriate version of a command is
called, for example to avoid calling a shell func
tion with the same name as an external command.
As an example, the function generating process IDs
as matches uses this style with the processes tag
to generate the IDs to complete and the list of
processes to display (if the verbose style is
`true'). The list produced by the command should
look like the output of the ps command. The first
line is not displayed, but is searched for the
string `PID' (or `pid') to find the position of the
process IDs in the following lines. If the line
does not contain `PID', the first numbers in each
of the other lines are taken as the process IDs to
complete.
Note that the completion function generally has to
call the command every time it is called. Because
of that care should be taken to specify only com
mands that take a short time to run (and that will
eventually stop at all).
commands
This is used by the function completing sub-com
mands for the system initialisation scripts (resid
ing in /etc/init.d or somewhere not too far away
from that). It's values give the default commands
to complete for those commands for which the com
pletion function isn't able to find them out auto
matically. The default for this style are the two
strings `start' and `stop'.
complete
This is used by the _expand_alias function when
invoked as a bindable command. If it set to `true'
and the word on the command line is not the name of
an alias, matching alias names will be completed.
completer
The strings given as the value of this style pro
vide the names of the completer functions to use.
The available completer functions are described in
the section `Control Functions' below.
Each string may be the name of a completer function
or a string of the form `function:name'. In the
first case the completer field of the context will
contain the name of the completer without the lead
ing underscore and with all other underscores
tion is the name of the completer to call, but the
context will contain the name in the completer
field of the context. If the name starts with a
hyphen, the string for the context will be build
from the name of the completer function as in the
first case with the name appended to it. For exam
ple:
zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _complete:-foo
Here, completion will call the _complete completer
twice, once using `complete' and once using `com
plete-foo' in the completer field of the context.
Normally, using the same completer more than once
makes only sense when used with the `func
tions:name' form, because otherwise the context
name will be the same in all calls to the com
pleter; possible exceptions to this rule are the
_ignored and _prefix completers.
The default value for this style is _complete
_ignored, i.e. normally only completion will be
done, first using the ignored-patterns style and
the $fignore array and then without ignoring
matches.
condition
This style is used by the _list completer function
to decide if insertion of matches should be delayed
unconditionally. The default is `true'.
disabled
If this is set to `true', the _expand_alias com
pleter and bindable command will try to expand dis
abled aliases, too. The default is `false'.
disable-stat
This is used with an empty tag by the function com
pleting for the cvs command to decide if the
zsh/stat module should be used to generate names of
modified files in the appropriate places (this is
its only use). If set, completion will use the ls
command.
domains
If set, gives the names of network domains that
should be completed. If this is not set by the
user domain names will be taken from the file
/etc/resolv.conf.
expand This style is used when completing strings consist
ing of multiple parts, such as path names. If its
value contains the string `prefix', the partially
possible even if trailing parts cannot be com
pleted. If it contains the string `suffix' and
normal (non-menu-) completion is used, matching
names for components after the first ambiguous one
will also be added. This means that the resulting
string is the longest unambiguous string possible,
but if menu completion is started on the list of
matches generated this way (e.g. due to the option
AUTO_MENU being set), this will also cycle through
the names of the files in pathname components after
the first ambiguous one.
fake-files
This style is used when completing files and looked
up without a tag. Its values are of the form
`dir:names...'. This will add the names (strings
separated by spaces) as possible matches when com
pleting in the directory dir, even if no such files
really exist.
This can be useful on systems that support special
filesystems whose top-level pathnames can not be
listed or generated with glob patterns. It can
also be used for directories for which one does not
have read permission.
fake-parameters
This is used by the completion function generating
parameter names as matches. Its values are names
of parameters which might not yet be set, but which
should be completed nonetheless. Each name may
also be followed by a colon and a string specifying
the type of the parameter (like `scalar', `array'
or `integer'). If such a type is given, the name
will only be completed if parameters of that type
are requested in the particular context. Names for
which no type is specified will always be com
pleted.
file-patterns
In most places where filenames are completed, the
function _files is used which can be configured
with this style. If the style is unset, _files
offers, one after another, up to three tags:
`globbed-files', `directories' and `all-files',
depending on the types of files expected by the
caller of _files.
If the file-patterns style is set, the default tags
are not used. Instead, the value of the style says
which tags and which patterns are to be offered.
The strings in the value contain specifications of
the form `pattern:tag'; each string may contain any
glob pattern that is to be used to generate file
names. If it contains the sequence `%p', that is
replaced by the pattern(s) given by the calling
function. Colons in the pattern must be preceded
by a backslash to make them distinguishable from
the colon before the tag. If more than one pattern
is needed, the patterns can be given inside braces,
separated by commas. The tags of all strings in
the value will be offered by _files (again, one
after another) and used when looking up other
styles. For strings containing more than one spec
ification, the filenames for all specifications
will be generated at the same try. If no `:tag' is
given the `files' tag will be used. The tag may
also be followed by an optional second colon and a
description. If that is given, this description
will be used for the `%d' in the value of the for
mat style (if that is set) instead of the default
description supplied by the completion function.
If the description given here contains itself a
`%d', that is replaced with the description sup
plied by the completion function.
For example, to make the rm command first complete
only names of object files and the names of all
files if no object file matches the string on the
line, one would do:
zstyle ':completion:*:*:rm:*' file-patterns \
'*.o:object-files' '%p:all-files'
Another interesting example is to change the
default behaviour that makes completion first offer
files matching the patterns given by the calling
function, then directories and then all files.
Many people prefer to get both the files matching
the given patterns and the directories in the first
try and all files at the second try. To achieve
this, one could do:
zstyle ':completion:*' file-patterns \
'%p:globbed-files *(-/):directories' '*:all-files'
This works even for contexts in which all files
would be completed, because _files will not try a
pattern more than once and it stops when the pat
tern `*' was tried.
Note also that during the execution of completion
functions, the EXTENDED_GLOB option is in effect,
so the characters `#', `~' and `^' have special
meanings in the patterns.
The completion function that generates filenames as
possible matches uses this style without a tag to
determine in which order the names should be listed
and completed when using menu completion. The
value may be one of `size' to sort them by the size
of the file, `links' to sort them by the number of
links to the file, `modification' (or `time' or
`date') to sort them by the last modification time,
`access' to sort them by the last access time, or
`inode' (or `change') to sort them by the last
inode change time. If the style is set to any
other value, or is unset, files will be sorted
alphabetically by name. If the value contains the
string `reverse', sorting is done in decreasing
order.
force-list
This forces a list of completions to be shown at
any point where listing is done, even in cases
where the list would usually be suppressed. For
example, normally the list is only shown if there
are at least two different matches. By setting
this style to `always', the list will always be
shown, even if there is only a single match which
is immediately accepted. The style may also be set
to a number. In this case the list will be shown
if there are at least that many matches, even if
they would all insert the same string.
This style is tested for the default tag and all
tags used when generating matches. This allows one
to turn unconditional listing on for certain types
of matches.
format If this is set for the descriptions tag, its value
is used as a string to display above matches in
completion lists. The sequence `%d' in this string
will be replaced with a short description of what
these matches are. This string may also contain
the sequences to specify output attributes, such as
`%B', `%S' and `%{...%}'.
For the same purpose, this style is also tested
with the tags used when matches are generated
before it is tested for the descriptions tag. This
provides the possibility of defining different for
mat strings for different types of matches.
Note also that some completer functions define
additional `%'-sequences. These are described for
the completer functions that make use of them.
For the messages tag, this style defines a string
sages. Here, the `%d' is replaced with a message
given by the completion function.
Finally, when set with the warnings tag, the format
string is printed when no matches could be gener
ated at all. In this case the `%d' is replaced
with the descriptions for the matches that were
expected separated by spaces and the sequence `%D'
is replaced with those descriptions separated by
newlines.
The `%' for the sequences that are replaced by
strings provided by the completion functions like
the `%d' may be followed by field width specifica
tions as described for the zformat builtin command
from the zsh/zutil module, see zshmodules(1).
glob This is used by the _expand completer. If it is
set to `true' (the default), globbing will be
attempted on the words resulting from substitution
(see the substitute style) or the original string
from the line.
global If this is set to `true' (the default), the
_expand_alias completer and bindable command will
try to expand global aliases.
group-name
The completion system can put different types of
matches in different groups which are then dis
played separately in the list of possible comple
tions. This style can be used to give the names
for these groups for particular tags. For example,
in command position the completion system generates
names of builtin and external commands, names of
aliases, shell functions and parameters and
reserved words as possible completions. To have
the external commands and shell functions listed
separately, one can set:
zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:commands' group-name commands
zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:functions' group-name functions
This also means that if the same name is used for
different types of matches, then those matches will
be displayed together in the same group.
If the name given is the empty string, then the
name of the tag for the matches will be used as the
name of the group. So, to have all different types
of matches displayed separately, one can just set:
zstyle ':completion:*' group-name ''
be put in a group named -default-.
group-order
This style is to be used together with the
group-name style. Once different types of matches
are put into different groups, this style can be
used to define in which order these groups should
appear when listing (compare tag-order, which
determines which completions appear at all). The
strings in the value are taken as group names and
the named groups will be shown in the order in
which their names appear in the value. All groups
whose names are not given in the value of this
style will appear in the order defined by the func
tion generating the matches.
For example, to have names of builtin commands,
shell functions and external commands appear in
this order when completing in command position one
would set:
zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*' group-order \
builtins functions commands
groups A style holding the names of the groups that should
be completed. If this is not set by the user, the
group names from the YP database or the file
`/etc/group' will be used.
hidden If this is set to one of the `true' values, the
matches for the tags for which this is set will not
appear in the list; only the description for the
matches as set with the format style will be shown.
If this is set to `all', not even the description
will be displayed.
Note that the matches will still be completed; they
are just not shown in the list. To avoid having
matches considered as possible completions at all,
the tag-order style can be modified as described
below.
hosts A style holding the names of hosts that should be
completed. If this is not set by the user the host
names in `/etc/hosts' will be used.
hosts-ports
This style is used by commands that need or accept
hostnames and ports. The strings in the value
should be of the form `host:port'. These hostnames
and ports are completed depending on the informa
tion already on the line, so that if, for example,
the hostname is already typed, only those ports
ple ports for the same host may appear.
ignore-line
This style is tested for the tags used when gener
ating matches. If it is set to `true', then none
of the words that are already on the line will be
considered possible completions. If it is set to
`current', the word the cursor is on will not be
considered a possible completion. The same happens
if the value is `current-shown', but only if the
list of completions is currently shown on the
screen. Finally, if it is set to `other' all words
except the current one will not be considered to be
a possible completion.
The values `current' and `current-shown' are a bit
like the opposite of accept-exact. They mean that
only strings with missing characters will be com
pleted.
Note that you almost certainly don't want to set
this to `true' or `other' for a general context
such as `:completion:*'. This is because it would
disallow completion of, for example, options multi
ple times even if the command in question accepts
the option more than once.
ignore-parents
The style is tested by the function completing
pathnames without a tag to determine whether to
ignore the names of directories already mentioned
in the current word, or the name of the current
working directory. The value must include one or
both of the following strings:
parent The name of any directory whose path is
already contained in the word on the line is
ignored. For example, when completing after
foo/../, the directory foo will not be con
sidered a valid completion.
pwd The name of the current working directory
will not be completed, so that, for example,
completion after ../ will not use the name
of the current directory.
In addition, the value may include one or both of:
.. Ignore the specified directories only when
the word on the line contains the substring
`../'.
Ignore only when names of directories are
completed, not when completing names of
files.
Note that names of directories ignored because of
one of the tests will be ignored in the same way as
the matches ignored because of the ignored-patterns
style. I.e., by using the _ignored completer it is
possible to complete these directories nonetheless.
ignored-patterns
This style can be used to specify a list of pat
terns which are tested against against the trial
completions in a given context; any matching com
pletions will be removed from the list of possibil
ities. The _ignored completer can appear in the
list of completers to produce a list which includes
these matches once more. This is a more config
urable version of the shell parameter $fignore.
Note that during the execution of completion func
tions, the EXTENDED_GLOB option is in effect, so
the characters `#', `~' and `^' have special mean
ings in the patterns.
insert-ids
When completing process IDs, for example as argu
ments to the kill and wait builtins, completion
allows the user to type the name of a command,
which will be converted to the appropriate process
ID. A problem arises when the process name typed
is not unique. By default (or if this style is set
explicitly to `menu') the name will be converted
immediately to a set of possible IDs, and menu com
pletion will be started to cycle through them. If
the value of the style is `single', however, the
shell will wait until the user has typed enough to
make the command unique before converting the name
to an ID; the user must type any additional charac
ters required. If the value is any other string,
menu completion will be started when the string
typed by the user is longer than the common prefix
of the corresponding IDs.
insert-tab
If this has one of the `true' values, the comple
tion system will insert a TAB character (assuming
it was used to start completion) instead of per
forming completion when there is no non-blank char
acter to the left of the cursor. If set to
`false', completion will be done even there.
The value may also contain the substrings `pending'
start completion be inserted instead of completion
being tried when there is input pending which has
not yet been processed by the shell. If a val is
given, completion will not be done if there are at
least that many characters of unprocessed input.
This is often useful to have set when pasting char
acters into a terminal. Note however, that it
relies on the $PENDING special parameter from the
zsh/zle module being set properly which is not
guaranteed on all platforms.
The default value of this style is `true' unless
when completing inside the vared builtin command,
where it defaults to `false'.
insert-unambiguous
This is used by the _match and _approximate com
pleter functions, where the possible completions
may not have a common prefix so that menu comple
tion is often the most useful may of choosing com
pletions. If the style is set to `true', the com
pleter will start menu completion only if no unam
biguous string could be generated that is at least
as long as the original string typed by the user.
Note that the _approximate completer uses it after
setting the completer field in the context name to
one of correct-num or approximate-num, where num is
the number of errors that were accepted.
When used for the _match completer, the style may
also be set to the string `pattern'. This makes
the pattern on the line be left unchanged if it
didn't match unambiguously.
keep-prefix
This style is used by the _expand completer. If it
is `true', the completer will try to keep a prefix
containing a tilde or parameter expansion. I.e.,
the string `~/f*' would be expanded to `~/foo'
instead of `/home/user/foo'. If the style is set
to `changed' (the default), the prefix will only be
left unchanged if there were other changes between
the expanded words and the original word from the
command line. Any other value makes the prefix be
expanded unconditionally.
Note that with one of the `true' values, the
_expand completer returns if there is only one
expansion and that is, after restoring the original
prefix, the same as the original word. This means
that other completers will be called immediately
after _expand.
This is used to determine if the completion code
should try to put the cursor back onto the previous
command line after showing a completion listing (as
for the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option). As with sev
eral other styles, it is tested for the default tag
as well as all the possible tags when generating
matches. The cursor will be moved back to the pre
vious line if this style is `true' for all types of
matches added. Note also that this is independent
of the numeric argument, unlike the
ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option.
list This style is used by the _history_complete_word
bindable command. If it is set to `true' it has no
effect, but if it is set to `false' the matches
will not be listed, overriding the setting of the
options that control listing behaviour, especially
AUTO_LIST. Use the context prefix `:completion:his
tory-words'.
list-colors
If the zsh/complist module is used, this style can
be used to set color specifications as with the
ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters, which will
not be honored under this completion system (see
the section `The zsh/complist Module' in zshmod
ules(1)).
If this style is set for the default tag, the
strings in the value are taken as specifications
that are to be used everywhere. If it is set for
other tags, the specifications are used only for
matches of the type described by the tag. For this
to work best, the group-name style must be set to
an empty string. If the group-name tag specifies
other names for the groups the matches in these
groups can be colored by using these names together
with the `(group)...' syntax described for the
ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters and adding
the specifications to the value for this style with
the default tag (although in most cases it should
work by setting this style for the appropriate
tags).
It is possible to use the same specifications set
up for the GNU version of the ls command:
zstyle ':completion:*:default' list-colors ${(s.:.)LS_COLORS}
The default colors are the same as for the GNU ls
command and can be obtained by setting the style to
an empty string (i.e. '').
Like the list-colors style, this is tested with the
default tag and all tags used when generating
matches. If it is set to `true' for a tag, the
matches added for it will be listed as if the
LIST_PACKED option were set. If it is set to
`false', they are listed normally.
list-prompt
If this style is set for the default tag, comple
tion lists that don't fit on the screen can be
scrolled (see the description of the zsh/complist
module in zshmodules(1)). The value, if not the
empty string, will be displayed after every screen
ful and the shell will prompt for a key press; if
the style is set to the empty string, a default
prompt will be used. The value may contain the
escape sequences `%l' or `%L', which will be
replaced by the number of the last line displayed
and the total number of lines; `%m' or `%M', which
will be replaced by the number of the last match
shown and the total number of matches; and `%p' and
`%P', which will be replaced by `Top' when at the
beginning of the list, `Bottom' when at the end and
the position shown in percent of the total length
otherwise. In each of these cases the form with
the uppercase letter is replaced by a string of
fixed width, padded to the right with spaces. As
in other prompt strings, the escape sequences `%S',
`%s', `%B', `%b', `%U', `%u', and `%{...%}' for
entering and leaving the display modes standout,
bold and underline are also available.
list-rows-first
This style is tested in the same way as the
list-packed style and determines if matches are to
be listed in a rows-first fashion, as for the
LIST_ROWS_FIRST option.
list-suffixes
This style is used by the function used to complete
filenames. If completion is attempted on a string
containing multiple partially typed pathname compo
nents and this style is set to `true', all compo
nents starting with the first one for which more
than one match could be generated will be shown.
local This style is used by completion functions which
generate URLs as possible matches to add suitable
matches when a URL points to a local web server,
that is, one whose files are available directly on
the local file system. Its value should consist of
three strings: a hostname, the path to the default
web pages for the server and the directory name
area. For example, completion after
`http://toast/~yousir/' will attempt to match the
name `toast' against the first argument to the
style, and if successful will look in the directory
under ~yousir given by the third argument to the
style for possible completions.
match-original
This is used by the _match completer. If it is set
to only, _match will try to generate matches with
out inserting a `*' at the cursor position. If set
to any other non-empty value, it will first try to
generate matches without inserting the `*' and if
that yields no matches, it will try again with the
`*' inserted. If it is unset or set to the empty
string, matching will only be done with the `*'
inserted.
matcher
This style is tested for tags used when generating
matches. Its value is used as an match specifica
tion additional to any given by the matcher-list
style which should be in the form described in the
section `Matching Control' in zshcompwid(1).
matcher-list
This style is used by the main completion function
to retrieve match specifications that are to be
used everywhere. Its value should be a list of
such specifications. The completion system will
try them one after another for each completer
selected. For example, to first try simple comple
tion and, if that generates no matches, case-insen
sitive completion one would do:
zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
By default every specification replaces previous
ones. If specification is prefixed with +, it is
added to the existing list. This allows testing
more general patterns without repeating the whole
list every time, as in:
zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list '' '+m{a-Z}={A-Z}' '+m{A-Z}={a-z}'
The style allows even finer control by specifying a
particular completer, without the leading under
score, in the third field of the completion con
text. For example, if one uses the completers
_complete and _prefix but wants to try case-insen
sitive completion only when using the _complete
completer, one would do:
zstyle ':completion:*:complete:*' matcher-list \
'' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
Note that the completer style allows user-defined
names to be used in the context instead of the name
of the completer. This is useful if, for example,
one wants to try normal completion without a match
specification and with case-insensitive matching
first, correction if that doesn't generate any
matches and partial-word completion if that doesn't
yield any matches either. In this case one can
give the _complete completer more than once in the
completer style and define different match specifi
cations for each occurrence, as in:
zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _correct _complete:foo
zstyle ':completion:*:complete:*' matcher-list \
'' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
zstyle ':completion:*:foo:*' matcher-list \
'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z} r:|[-_./]=* r:|=*'
If the style is unset in any context no match spec
ification is applied; further, some completers such
as _correct and _approximate do not use the match
specifications at all. However, it is always safe
to use the simple form for this style (as in the
first example above), since any completers which do
not use match specifications will only ever be
called once, rather than once per specification.
Since the specification-strings in this style have
to be tried one after another, it is a good idea to
keep their number low. In most cases one to three
strings (each of which may, without to large a per
formance hit, consist of more than one single match
specification) will give acceptable performance.
max-errors
This is used by the _approximate and _correct com
pleter functions to determine the maximum number of
errors to allow. The completer will try to gener
ate completions by first allowing one error, then
two errors, and so on, until either a match or
matches were found or the maximum number of errors
given by this style has been reached.
If the value for this style contains the string
`numeric', the completer function will take any
numeric argument as the maximum number of errors
allowed. For example, with
zstyle ':completion:*:approximate:::' max-errors 2 numeric
given, but with a numeric argument of six (as in
`ESC-6 TAB'), up to six errors are accepted. Hence
with a value of `0 numeric', no correcting comple
tion will be attempted unless a numeric argument is
given.
If the value contains the string `not-numeric', the
completer will not try to generate corrected com
pletions when given a numeric argument, so in this
case the number given should be greater than zero.
For example, `2 not-numeric' specifies that cor
recting completion with two errors will usually be
performed, but if a numeric argument is given, cor
recting completion will not be performed.
The default value for this style is `2 numeric'.
menu If this is set to true in a given context, using
any of the tags defined for a given completion,
menu completion will be used. The tag `default'
can be used to set the default value, but a spe
cific tag will take precedence. If none of the
values found in this way is true but at least one
is set to `auto' the behaviour will be as for the
AUTO_MENU option. Finally, if one of the values is
explicitly set to false, menu completion will be
turned off even if it would otherwise be active
(for example, with the MENU_COMPLETE option).
Using the form `yes=num', where `yes' may be any of
the true values (`yes', `true', `on' and `1') turns
on menu completion if there at least num matches.
Using this for one of the `false' values (as in
`no=10') makes menu completion not be used if there
are num or more matches. Of course, this is only
useful when menu completion is normally used, e.g.
by setting the MENU_COMPLETE option. The `true'
values may also be used in the form `yes=long' to
turn on menu completion if the list does not fit
onto the screen. This will start menu completion
only if normal completion was attempted, not when
only the list of possible completions was
requested. To start menu completion even then, the
value `yes=long-list' can be used.
In addition to (or instead of) the above possibili
ties, the value may contain the string `select',
optionally followed by an equals sign and a number.
In this case menu selection (as defined by the
zsh/complist module) will be started. Without the
optional number, it will be started unconditionally
and with a number it will be started only if at
least that many matches are generated; if the
smallest number is taken. Menu selection can be
turned off explicitly by defining a value contain
ing the string `no-select'.
It is also possible to start menu selection only if
the list of matches does not fit on the screen by
using the value `select=long'. This will only
start menu selection if the widget invoked does
completion, not simply listing as done by
delete-char-or-list; to start menu selection even
here, use the value `select=long-list'.
To turn on menu completion or menu selection when a
certain number of matches is generated or the list
of matches does not fit onto the screen, both of
`yes=' and `select=' can be given twice, once with
a number and once with `long' or `long-list'.
numbers
This is used with the jobs tag. If it is `true',
the shell will complete the job numbers instead of
the shortest unambiguous strings of the jobs' com
mand lines. If the value is a number, job numbers
will only be used if that many words from the job
descriptions are required to resolve ambiguities.
For example, if the value is `1', strings will only
be used if all jobs differ in the first word on
their command lines.
old-list
This is used by the _oldlist completer. If it is
set to `always', then standard widgets which per
form listing will retain the current list of
matches, however they were generated; this can be
turned off explicitly with the value `never', giv
ing the behaviour without the _oldlist completer.
If the style is unset, or any other value, then the
existing list of completions is displayed if it is
not already; otherwise, the standard completion
list is generated; this is the default behaviour of
_oldlist. However, if there is an old list and
this style contains the name of the completer func
tion that generated the list, then the old list
will be used even if it was generated by a widget
which does not do listing.
For example, suppose you type ^Xc to use the _cor
rect_word widget, which generates a list of correc
tions for the word under the cursor. Usually, typ
ing ^D would generate a standard list of comple
tions for the word on the command line, and show
that. With _oldlist, it will instead show the list
of corrections already generated.
with the insert-unambiguous style set to `true' it
inserts only a common prefix string, if there is
any. However, this may remove parts of the origi
nal pattern, so that further completion could pro
duce more matches than on the first attempt. By
using the _oldlist completer and setting this style
to _match, the list of matches generated on the
first attempt will be used again.
old-matches
This is used by the _all_matches completer to
decide if an old list of matches should be used if
one exists. It may be set to one of the `true'
values or to the string `only' to use such a list.
If it is set to `only', _all_matches will only use
an old list and won't have any effect on the list
of matches currently being generated.
old-menu
This is used by the _oldlist completer. It con
trols how menu completion behaves when a completion
has already been inserted and the user types a
standard completion key type such as TAB. The
default behaviour of _oldlist is that menu comple
tion always continues with the existing list of
completions. If this style is set to `false', how
ever, a new completion is started if the old list
was generated by a different completion command;
this is the behaviour without the _oldlist com
pleter.
For example, suppose you type ^Xc to generate a
list of corrections, and menu completion is started
in one of the usual ways. Usually, or with this
style set to false, typing TAB at this point would
start trying to complete the line as it now
appears. With _oldlist, it instead continues to
cycle through the list of corrections.
original
This is used by the _approximate and _correct com
pleters to decide if the original string should be
added as one possible completion. Normally, this
is done only if there are at least two possible
corrections, but if this style is set to `true', it
is always added. Note that these completers use
this style after setting the completer field in the
context name to correct-num or approximate-num,
where num is the number of errors that were
accepted.
packageset
This style is used when completing arguments of the
the default package set for a given context. For
example,
zstyle ':completion:*:complete:dpkg:option--status-1:*' \
packageset avail
causes available packages, rather than only
installed packages, to be completed for `dpkg
--status'.
path The function that completes color names uses this
style with the colors tag. The value should be the
pathname of a file containing color names in the
format of an X11 rgb.txt file. If the style is not
set but this file is found in one of various stan
dard locations it will be used as the default.
ports A style holding the service names of ports to com
plete. If this is not set by the user, the service
names from `/etc/services' will be used.
prefix-hidden
This is used when matches with a common prefix are
added (e.g. option names). If it is `true', this
prefix will not be shown in the list of matches.
The default value for this style is `false'.
prefix-needed
This, too, is used for matches with a common pre
fix. If it is set to `true' this common prefix has
to be typed by the user to generate the matches.
E.g. for options this means that the `-', `+', or
`--' has to be on the line to make option names be
completed at all.
The default style for this style is `true'.
range This is used by the _history completer and the
_history_complete_word bindable command to decide
which words should be completed. It may be set to
a number, N, to say that only the last N words from
the history should be completed. The value may
also be of the form `max:slice'. This means that
first the last slice words will be completed. If
that yields no matches, the slice words before
those will be tried and so on, until either at
least one match is generated or max words have been
tried. The default is to complete all words from
the history at once.
regular
This style is used by the _expand_alias completer
default), regular aliases will be expanded but only
in command position. If it is set to `false', reg
ular aliases will never be expanded and if it is
set to the string `always', regular aliases will be
expanded even if not in command position.
remove-all-dups
The _history_complete_word bindable command and the
_history completer use this to decide if all dupli
cate matches should be removed, rather than just
consecutive duplicates.
select-prompt
If this is set for the default tag, its value will
be displayed during menu selection (see the menu
style above) when the completion list does not fit
on the screen as a whole. The same escapes as for
the list-prompt style are understood, but give the
number of the match or line the mark is on. A
default prompt is used when the value is the empty
string.
select-scroll
This style is tested for the default tag and deter
mines how a completion list is scrolled during a
menu selection (see the menu style above) when the
completion list does not fit on the screen as a
whole. Its value should be `0' (zero) to scroll by
half-screenfuls, a positive integer to scroll by
that many lines and a negative number to scroll by
the number of lines of the screen minus that number
(or plus the number, since it is negative). The
default is to scroll by single lines.
single-ignored
This is used by the _ignored completer. It speci
fies what should be done if it can generate only
one match, which is often a special case. If its
value is `show', the single match will be displayed
but not inserted. If the value is `menu', then the
single match and the original string are both added
as matches and menu completion is started so that
one can easily select either of them.
sort If set to `true', completion functions that gener
ate words from the history as possible matches sort
these words alphabetically instead of keeping them
in the order in which they appear in the history
(from youngest to oldest).
This is also used by the _expand completer. Here,
if it is set to `true', the expansions generated
will always be sorted. If it is set to `menu',
offered as single strings (not in the string con
taining all possible expansions).
special-dirs
Normally, the completion code will not produce the
directory names `.' and `..' as possible comple
tions. If this style is set to `true', it will add
both `.' and `..' as possible completions; if it is
set to `..', only `..' will be added.
squeeze-slashes
If set to `true', sequences of slashes (as in
`foo//bar') will be treated as if they were only
one slash when completing pathnames. This is the
usual behaviour of UNIX paths. However, by default
the file completion function behaves as if there
were a `*' between the slashes.
stop If set to `true', the _history_complete_word bind
able command will stop once when reaching the
beginning or end of the history. Invoking _his
tory_complete_word will then wrap around to the
opposite end of the history. If this style is set
to `false' (the default), _history_complete_word
will loop immediately as in a menu completion.
subst-globs-only
This is used by the _expand completer. If it is
set to `true', the expansion will only be used if
it resulted from globbing; hence, if expansions
resulted from the use of the substitute style
described below, but these were not further changed
by globbing, the expansions will be rejected.
The default for this style is `false'.
substitute
This boolean style controls whether the _expand
completer will first try to expand all substitu
tions in the string (such as `$(...)' and
`${...}').
The default is `true'.
suffix This is used by the _expand completer if the word
starts with a tilde or contains a parameter expan
sion. If it is set to `true', the word will only be
expanded if it doesn't have a suffix, i.e. if it is
something like `~foo' or `$foo', but not if it is
`~foo/' or `$foo/bar', unless that suffix itself
contains characters eligible for expansion. The
default for this style is `true'.
This provides a mechanism for sorting how the tags
available in a particular context will be used.
The values for the style are sets of space-sepa
rated lists of tags. The tags in each value will
be tried at the same time; if no match is found,
the next value is used. (See the file-patterns
style for an exception to this behavior.)
For example:
zstyle ':completion:*:complete:-command-:*' tag-order \
'commands functions'
specifies that completion in command position
should offer only completions for external commands
and shell functions immediately.
In addition to tag names, each string in the value
may take one of the following forms:
- If any string in the value consists of only
a hyphen, then only the tags specified by
the other strings in the value are gener
ated. Normally all tags not explicitly
selected are tried last if the specified
tags fail to generate any matches. This
means that a value consisting only of a sin
gle hyphen turns off completion.
! tags...
A string starting with an exclamation mark
specifies names of tags that are not to be
used. The effect is the same as if all
other possible tags for the context had been
listed.
tag:label ...
In strings not starting with an exclamation
mark, it is also possible to specify tag
labels instead of only tags, where tag is
one of the tags offered by the completion
function for the current context and label
is a name. For this, the completion func
tion will generate matches in the same way
as for the tag but it will use the label in
place of the tag in the context names used
to look up styles. If the label starts with
a hyphen, the tag is prepended to the label
to form the name used for lookup. This can
be used to make the completion system try a
certain tag more than once, supplying dif
ferent style settings for each attempt, see
The label may optionally be followed by a
second colon and a description. This
description will then be used for the `%d'
in the value of the format style instead of
the default description supplied by the com
pletion function. Spaces in the description
have to be quoted by preceding them with a
backslash and a `%d' appearing in the
description is replaced with the description
given by the completion function.
In each of the cases above, the tag may also be a pattern
or more than one pattern inside braces and separated by
commas. In this case all of the offered tags matching the
pattern(s) will be used except for those that are given
explicitly in the same string. There are probably two
main uses of this. One is the case where one wants to try
one of the tags more than once, setting other styles dif
ferently for each try, but still wants to use all the
other tags without having to repeat them all. For exam
ple, to make completion of function names in command posi
tion ignore all the completion functions starting with an
underscore the first time completion is tried, one could
do:
zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*' tag-order \
'functions:-non-comp *' functions
zstyle ':completion:*:functions-non-comp' ignored-patterns '_*'
Here, the completion system will first try all tags
offered, but will use the tag label functions-non-comp
when looking up styles for the function names completed.
For this, the ignored-patterns style is set to exclude
functions starting with an underscore from the set of pos
sible matches. If none of the generated matches match the
string on the line, the completion system will use the
second value of the tag-order style and complete functions
names again, but this time using the name functions to
look up styles, so that the ignored-patterns style is not
used and all function names are considered.
Of course, this can also be used to split the matches for
one tag into different groups. For example:
zstyle ':completion:*' tag-order \
'options:-long:long\ options
options:-short:short\ options
options:-single-letter:single\ letter\ options'
zstyle ':completion:*:options-long' ignored-patterns '[-+](|-|[^-]*)'
zstyle ':completion:*:options-short' ignored-patterns '--*' '[-+]?'
zstyle ':completion:*:options-single-letter' ignored-patterns '???*'
ning with `--', options beginning with a single `-' or `+'
but containing multiple characters, and single-letter
options be displayed in separate groups with different
descriptions.
The second interesting use of patterns is the case where
one wants to try multiple match specifications one after
another. The matcher-list style offers something similar,
but it is tested very early in the completion system and
hence can't be set for single commands nor for more spe
cific contexts. Here is how to try normal completion
without any match specification and, if that generates no
matches, try again with case-insensitive matching,
restricting the effect to arguments of the command foo:
zstyle ':completion:*:*:foo:*' tag-order '*' '*:-case'
zstyle ':completion:*-case' matcher 'm:{a-z}={A-Z}'
First, all the tags offered when completing after foo are
tried using the normal tag name. If that generates no
matches, the second value of tag-order is used, which
tries all tags again except that this time each has -case
appended to its name for lookup of styles. Hence this
time the value for the matcher style from the second call
to zstyle in the example is used to make completion
case-insensitive.
Using the -e option of the zstyle builtin command, it is
possible to specify conditions saying when certain tags
are to be used. For example:
zstyle -e '*:-command-:*' tag-order '
if [[ -n $PREFIX ]]; then
reply=( )
else
reply=( - )
fi'
Makes completion in command position happen only if the
string on the line is not empty. This is tested using the
PREFIX parameter which is special in completion widgets;
see zshcompwid for a description of these special parame
ters. Setting reply to an empty array ensures that only
the default behaviour of trying all tags at once is used
and setting it to an array containing only a hyphen dis
ables that default behaviour -- thus keeping all tags from
being tried.
If no style has been defined for a context, the strings
`(|*-)argument-* (|*-)option-* values' and `options' plus
all tags offered by the completion function will be used
to provide a sensible default behavior that causes argu
ments (whether normal command arguments or arguments of
options) to be completed before option names for most
urls This is used together with the the urls tag by com
pletion functions that generate URLs as possible
matches. If the value consists of more than one
string or if the only string does not name a file
or directory, the strings are used as the URLs to
complete.
If the value contains only one string and that is
the name of a normal file, the URLs are taken from
that file (where the URLs may be separated by white
space or newlines).
Finally, if the only string in the value names a
directory, that should contain sub-directories
named after the retrieval methods which occur as
the first part of a URL, i.e. `http', `ftp',
`bookmark', and so on. These sub-directories
should contain files and other sub-directories
whose pathnames are possible completions after the
initial `http://', `ftp://', etc. See the descrip
tion in the file _urls in the User sub-directory of
the completion system for more information.
use-cache
If this is set, the completion caching layer is
activated for any completions which use it (via the
_store_cache, _retrieve_cache, and _cache_invalid
functions). The directory containing the cache
files can be changed with the cache-path style.
use-compctl
If this style is set to a string not equal to
false, 0, no, and off, the completion system may
use any completion specifications defined with the
compctl builtin command. If the style is unset,
this is done only if the zsh/compctl module is
loaded. The string may also contain the substring
`first' to make the definition for `compctl -T' be
used, and the substring `default' to make the one
for `compctl -D' be used.
Note that this is only intended to smooth the tran
sition from compctl to the new completion system
and may disappear in the future.
Note also that the definitions from compctl will
only be used if there is no specific completion
function for the command in question. For example,
while completing arguments to the command foo, if
this was handled by a command function _foo, com
pctl would never be tried, while if it was handled
by _default, compctl would be tried.
completed whenever a username is needed. If it is
not set or the string on the line doesn't match any
of the strings in this list, all usernames will be
completed.
users-hosts
The values of this style should be of the form
`user@host' or `user:host'. It is used for commands
that need pairs of user- and hostnames. For such
commands, only the pairs from this style are used
and if, for example, the username is already typed,
then only the hostnames for which there is a pair
with that username is defined.
If set for the my-accounts tag, this is used for
commands such as rlogin and ssh; in this case the
style should contain the names of the user's own
accounts on remote hosts. If set for the
other-accounts tag, it is used for commands such as
talk and finger and should contain other people's
accounts. Finally, it may also be used by some
commands with the accounts tag.
users-hosts-ports
Like users-hosts but used for commands like telnet
and containing strings of the form
`user@host:port'.
verbose
This is used in several contexts to decide if only
a simple or a verbose list of matches should be
generated. For example some commands show descrip
tions for option names if this style is `true'.
The default value for this style is `true'.
word This is used by the _list completer, which prevents
the insertion of completions until a second comple
tion attempt when the line has not changed. The
normal way of finding out if the line has changed
is to compare its entire contents between the two
occasions. If this style is true, the comparison
is instead performed only on the current word.
Hence if completion is performed on another word
with the same contents, completion will not be
delayed.
CONTROL FUNCTIONS
The initialization script compinit redefines all the wid
gets which perform completion to call the supplied widget
function _main_complete. This function acts as a wrapper
calling the so-called `completer' functions that generate
these are taken as the names of completer functions to be
called in the order given. If no arguments are given, the
set of functions to try is taken from the completer style.
For example, to use normal completion and correction if
that doesn't generate any matches:
zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _correct
after calling compinit. The default value for this style
is `_complete _ignored', i.e. normally only ordinary com
pletion is tried, first with the effect of the
ignored-patterns style and then without it. The
_main_complete function uses the return value of the com
pleter functions to decide if other completers should be
called. If the return value is zero, no other completers
are tried and the _main_complete function returns.
If the first argument to _main_complete is a single
hyphen, the arguments will not be taken as names of com
pleters. Instead, the second argument gives a name to use
in the completer field of the context and the other argu
ments give a command name and arguments to call to gener
ate the matches.
The following completer functions are contained in the
distribution (users may write their own):
_all_matches
This completer can be used to add a string consist
ing of all other matches. To ensure, that this
string is always added, this completer has to be
used as the first completer in the list. The
avoid-completer style is used to decide if the
string should be added. This will only be done if
the matches were generated by a completer not named
by one of the values of the style.
This function also uses the style old-matches. If
it is set to `true' or to the string `only' and
there is a list of matches from a previous comple
tion, those matches will be inserted in the command
line. If it is set to the the string `only', it
will only insert an old list and won't add the
string for all matches of the list currently being
generated.
With the old-matches style set, this completer
should probably not be called unconditionally.
Instead one could use the -e option of the zstyle
builtin command to add a condition to the completer
or to the old-matches style. Alternatively, one
could use the _generic function to bind
_all_matches to a separate key binding, for
zle -C all-matches complete-word _generic
bindkey '^Xa' all-matches
zstyle ':completion:all-matches:*' old-matches only
zstyle ':completion:all-matches:*' completer _all_matches
_approximate
This completer function uses the _complete com
pleter to generate a list of strings for the con
text the cursor is currently in, allowing you to
specify a maximum number of errors: see the
description of approximate matching in zshexpn(1)
for how errors are counted. The resulting list of
corrected and completed strings is then presented
to the user. The intended use of this completer
function is to try after the normal _complete com
pleter by setting:
zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _approximate
This will give correcting completion if and only if
normal completion yields no possible completions.
When corrected completions are found, the completer
will normally start menu completion allowing you to
cycle through these strings.
This completer uses the tags corrections and origi
nal when generating the possible corrections and
the original string. The format style for the for
mer may contain the additional sequences `%e' and
`%o' which will be replaced by the number of errors
accepted to generate the corrections and the origi
nal string, respectively.
As with all completers, _approximate uses its name
without the underscore in the completer field of
the context name. Once it has started trying to
generate matches, it will append a minus sign and
the number of errors accepted to its name.
_approximate will first look for completions with
one error, then two, and on so up to the limit on
the number of errors set by the max-errors style.
Hence on the first try the completer field of the
context contains `approximate-1', on the second try
`approximate-2', and so on.
When _approximate is called from another function,
the number of errors to accept may be given with
the -a option. Its argument should be the same as
the value of the max-errors style, all in one
string.
Note that this completer (and the _correct
to call, especially when a large number of errors
are allowed. One way to avoid this is to set up
the completer style using the -e option to zstyle
so that some completers are only used when comple
tion is attempted a second time on the same string,
e.g.:
zstyle ':completion:*' completer '
if [[ $_last_try != "$HISTNO$BUFFER$CURSOR" ]]; then
_last_try="$HISTNO$BUFFER$CURSOR"
reply=(_complete _match _prefix)
else
reply=(_ignored _correct _approximate)
fi'
This uses the HISTNO parameter and the BUFFER and
CURSOR special parameters that are available inside
zle and completion widgets to find out if the com
mand line hasn't changed since the last time com
pletion was tried. Only then are the _ignored,
_correct and _approximate completers called.
_complete
This completer generates all possible completions
in a context-sensitive manner, i.e. using the set
tings defined with the compdef function explained
above and the current settings of all special
parameters. This gives the normal completion
behaviour.
To complete arguments of commands, _complete uses
the utility function _normal, which is in turn
responsible for finding the particular function; it
is described below. Various contexts of the form
-context-, as mentioned above for the #compdef tag,
are handled specially. These are:
-array-value-
for completion on the right hand side of an
array-assignment (`foo=(...)').
-brace-parameter-
for completing the name of a parameter
expansion within braces (`${...}').
-command-
for completing in a command position.
-condition-
for completion inside conditions
(`[[...]]').
for generating completions when no special
completion function is used.
-equal-
for completion of words beginning with an
equals sign
-first-
for adding completions before any other com
pletion functions are tried; if this func
tion sets the _compskip parameter to all, no
other completion functions will be called,
if it is set to a string containing the sub
string patterns, no pattern completion func
tions will be called, and if it is set to a
string containing default the function for
the `-default-' context will not be called,
but functions defined for commands will.
-math- for completion inside mathematical contexts,
such as `((...))'.
-parameter-
for completing the name of a parameter
expansion (`$...').
-redirect-
for completion after a redirection operator.
-subscript-
for completion inside subscripts.
-tilde-
for completion after a tilde (`~') charac
ter, but before a slash.
-value-
for completion on the right hand side of an
assignment.
Default implementations are supplied for each of
these contexts, in most cases named after the con
text itself (e.g. completion for the `-tilde-' con
text is done by the function named `_tilde').
Before trying to find a function for a specific
context, _complete checks if the parameter `comp
context' is set. If it is set to an array, the
elements are taken to be the possible matches which
will be completed using the tag `values' and the
description `value'. If it is set to an associa
tive array, the keys are used as the possible com
pletions and the values (if non-empty) are used as
set to a string containing colons, it should be of
the form `tag:descr:action'. In this case the tag
and descr give the tag and description to use and
the action says what should be completed in one of
the forms described for the _arguments utility
function below.
Finally, if `compcontext' is set to a string with
out colons, the value is taken as the name of the
context to use and the function defined for that
context will be called. For this purpose, there is
a special context named -command-line- that com
pletes whole command lines (commands and their
arguments) and is not used by the completion system
itself, but has a function handling completion for
it.
_correct
Generate corrections, but not completions, for the
current word; this is similar to _approximate but
will not allow any number of extra characters at
the cursor as that completer does, hence this is
similar to spell-checking. It calls _approximate
but uses a different completer field in the context
name.
For example, with:
zstyle ':completion:::::' completer _complete _correct _approximate
zstyle ':completion:*:correct:::' max-errors 2 not-numeric
zstyle ':completion:*:approximate:::' max-errors 3 numeric
correction will accept up to two errors. If a
numeric argument is given, correction will not be
performed, but correcting completion will be, and
will accept as many errors as given by the numeric
argument. Without a numeric argument, first cor
rection and then correcting completion will be
tried, with the first one accepting two errors and
the second one accepting three errors.
When _correct is called as a function, the number
of errors to accept may be given following the -a
option. The argument should be the same as the
value of the accept style, all in one string.
This completer function is intended to be used
without the _approximate completer or, as in the
example, just before it. Using it after the
_approximate completer is useless since _approxi
mate will at least generate the corrected strings
generated by the _correct completer -- and probably
more.
This completer function does not really do comple
tion, but instead checks if the word on the command
line is eligible for expansion and, if it is, gives
detailed control over how this expansion is done.
When using this, one should not use the
expand-or-complete widget, but instead use com
plete-word, as expand-or-complete will expand the
string on the line before the completion widget is
called. Also, this completer should be called
before the _complete completer function.
The tags used when generating expansions are
all-expansions for the string containing all possi
ble expansions, expansions when adding the possible
expansions as single matches and original when
adding the original string from the line. In which
order these strings are generated and which of
these strings are generated at all can be con
trolled by using the group-order style and by modi
fying the tag-order style, as usual.
The format string for all-expansions and for expan
sions may contain the sequence `%o' which will be
replaced by the original string from the line.
Which kind of expansion is tried is controlled by
the substitute, glob and subst-globs-only styles.
When _expand is called as a function, the different
modes may be selected with options. The -s to sub
stitute, -g to glob and -o to subst-globs-only.
_expand_alias
If the word the cursor is on is an alias, it is
expanded and no other completers are called. The
types of aliases which are to be expanded can be
controlled with the regular, global and disabled
styles.
This function is also a bindable command, see the
section `Bindable Commands' below.
_history
Complete words from the shell's command history.
This completer uses the remove-all-dups, and sort
styles also used by the _history_complete_word
bindable command, see the section `Bindable Com
mands' below and the section `Completion System
Configuration' above.
_ignored
The ignored-patterns style can be set to a list of
patterns which are compared against possible
completer those matches can be reinstated, as if no
ignored-patterns style were set. The completer
actually generates its own list of matches; which
completers are used for this is determined in the
same way as for the _prefix completer.
The single-ignored style is used if only one match
could be generated. It can be set to show to pre
vent that match from being displayed or inserted
into the line, or it can be set to menu, in which
case the single match and the original string from
the line will be offered in a menu completion.
_list This completer allows one to delay the insertion of
matches until completion is attempted a second time
without the word on the line being changed. On the
first attempt, only the list of matches will be
shown. It is affected by the styles condition and
word, see the section `Completion System Configura
tion' above.
_match This completer is intended to be used after the
_complete completer. It allows one to give patterns
on the command line and to complete all strings
matching these patterns from the set of possible
completions for the context the cursor is in, with
out having to set the GLOB_COMPLETE option.
Normally this will be done by taking the pattern
from the line, inserting a `*' at the cursor posi
tion and comparing the resulting pattern with the
possible completions generated. However, if the
match-original style has a value of only, no `*'
will be inserted. If match-original has any other
non-empty string as its value, this completer will
first try to generate matches without, then with a
`*' inserted at the cursor position.
The generated matches will be offered in a menu
completion unless the insert-unambiguous style is
set to `true'. In this case menu completion will
only be started if no unambiguous string could be
generated that is at least as long as the original
string. The style may also be set to the string
`pattern'. This will keep the pattern on the line
intact as long as there isn't an unambiguous com
pletion with which it could be replaced.
Note that the matcher specifications defined glob
ally or used by the completion functions will not
be used.
_menu This completer is a simple example function
in shell code. It should be used as the first com
pleter and has the effect of making the code per
form menu completion. Note that this is indepen
dent of the setting of the MENU_COMPLETE option and
does not work with the other menu completion wid
gets such as reverse-menu-complete, or
accept-and-menu-complete.
_oldlist
This completer controls how the standard completion
widgets behave when there is an existing list of
completions which may have been generated by a spe
cial completion (i.e. a separately-bound completion
command). It allows the ordinary completion keys
to continue to use the list of completions thus
generated, instead of producing a new list of ordi
nary contextual completions. It should appear in
the list of completers before any of the widgets
which generate matches. It uses two styles:
old-list and old-menu, see the section `Completion
System Configuration' above.
_prefix
This completer can be used to try completion with
the suffix (everything after the cursor) ignored.
In other words, the suffix will not be considered
to be part of the word to complete and hence does
not need to be matched. It uses the completer
style to decide which other completers to call to
try to generate matches. If this style is unset,
the list of completers set for the current context
is used -- except, of course, the _prefix completer
itself. Furthermore, if this completer appears
more than once in the list of completers only those
completers not already tried by the last invocation
of _prefix will be called.
For example, consider this global completer style:
zstyle ':completion:*' completer \
_complete _prefix _correct _prefix:foo
Here, the _prefix completer tries normal completion
but ignoring the suffix. If that doesn't generate
any matches, and neither does the call to the _cor
rect completer after it, _prefix will be called a
second time and, now only trying correction with
the suffix ignored. If you want to use _prefix as
the last resort and try only normal completion, you
can use:
zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete ... _prefix
zstyle ':completion::prefix:*' completer _complete
`true' then _prefix will insert a space between the
matches generated (if any) and the suffix.
Note that this completer is only useful if the COM
PLETE_IN_WORD option is set; otherwise, the cursor
will be moved to the end of the current word before
the completion code is called and hence there will
be no suffix.
BINDABLE COMMANDS
In addition to the context-dependent completions provided,
which are expected to work in an intuitively obvious way,
there are a few widgets implementing special behaviour
which can be bound separately to keys. The following is a
list of these and their default bindings.
_bash_completions
This function is used by two widgets, _bash_com
plete-word and _bash_list-choices. It exists to
provide compatibility with completion bindings in
bash. The last character of the binding determines
what is completed: `!', command names; `$', envi
ronment variables; `@', host names; `/', file
names; `~' user names. In bash, the binding pre
ceded by `\e' gives completion, and preceded by
`^X' lists options. As some of these bindings
clash with standard zsh bindings, only `\e~' and
`^X~' are bound by default. To add the rest, the
following should be added to .zshrc after compinit
has been run:
for key in '!' '$' '@' '/' '~'; do
bindkey "\e$key" _bash_complete-word
bindkey "^X$key" _bash_list-choices
done
This includes the bindings for `~' in case they
were already bound to something else; the comple
tion code does not override user bindings.
_correct_filename (^XC)
Correct the filename path at the cursor position.
Allows up to six errors in the name. Can also be
called with an argument to correct a filename path,
independently of zle; the correction is printed on
standard output.
_correct_word (^Xc)
Performs correction of the current argument using
the usual contextual completions as possible
choices. This stores the string `correct-word' in
the function field of the context name and then
_expand_alias (^Xa)
This function can be used as a completer and as a
bindable command. It expands the word the cursor
is on if it is an alias. The types of aliases
expanded can be controlled with the regular, global
and disabled styles.
When used as a bindable command there is one addi
tional feature that can be selected by setting the
complete style to `true'. In this case, if the
word isn't the name of an alias, _expand_alias
tries to complete the word to a full alias name
without expanding it (but leaving the cursor
directly after the completed word so that invoking
_expand_alias once more will expand the now-com
plete alias name).
_expand_word (^Xe)
Performs expansion on the current word: equivalent
to the standard expand-word command, but using the
_expand completer. Before calling it, the function
field is set to `expand-word'.
_generic
This function is not defined as a widget and not
bound by default. However, it can be used to define
a widget and will then store the name of the widget
in the function field of the context and call the
completion system. This allows custom completion
widgets with their own set of style settings to be
easily defined. For example, to define a widget
that does normal completion and starts menu selec
tion, one could do:
zle -C foo complete-word _generic
bindkey '...' foo
zstyle ':completion:foo:*' menu yes select=1
_history_complete_word (\e/)
Complete words from the shell's command history.
This uses the list, remove-all-dups, sort, and stop
styles.
_most_recent_file (^Xm)
Complete the name of the most recently modified
file matching the pattern on the command line
(which may be blank). If given a numeric argument
N, complete the Nth most recently modified file.
Note the completion, if any, is always unique.
_next_tags (^Xn)
This command alters the set of matches used to that
by the tag-order style or as set by default; these
matches would otherwise not be available. Succes
sive invocations of the command cycle through all
possible sets of tags.
_read_comp (^X^R)
Prompt the user for a string, and use that to per
form completion on the current word. There are two
possibilities for the string. First, it can be a
set of words beginning `_', for example `_files
-/', in which case the function with any arguments
will be called to generate the completions. Unam
biguous parts of the function name will be com
pleted automatically (normal completion is not
available at this point) until a space is typed.
Second, any other string will be passed as a set of
arguments to compadd and should hence be an expres
sion specifying what should be completed.
A very restricted set of editing commands is avail
able when reading the string: `DEL' and `^H'
delete the last character; `^U' deletes the line,
and `^C' and `^G' abort the function, while `RET'
accepts the completion. Note the string is used
verbatim as a command line, so arguments must be
quoted in accordance with standard shell rules.
Once a string has been read, the next call to
_read_comp will use the existing string instead of
reading a new one. To force a new string to be
read, call _read_comp with a numeric argument.
_complete_debug (^X?)
This widget performs ordinary completion, but cap
tures in a temporary file a trace of the shell com
mands executed by the completion system. Each com
pletion attempt gets its own file. A command to
view each of these files is pushed onto the editor
buffer stack.
_complete_help (^Xh)
This widget displays information about the context
names, the tags, and the completion functions used
when completing at the current cursor position. If
given a numeric argument other than 1 (as in `ESC-2
^Xh'), then the styles used and the contexts for
which they are used will be shown, too.
Note that the information about styles may be
incomplete; it depends on the information available
from the completion functions called, which in turn
is determined by the user's own styles and other
_complete_tag (^Xt)
This widget completes symbol tags created by the
etags or ctags programmes (note there is no connec
tion with the completion system's tags) stored in a
file TAGS, in the format used by etags, or tags, in
the format created by ctags. It will look back up
the path hierarchy for the first occurrence of
either file; if both exist, the file TAGS is pre
ferred. You can specify the full path to a TAGS or
tags file by setting the parameter $TAGSFILE or
$tagsfile respectively. The corresponding comple
tion tags used are etags and vtags, after emacs and
vi respectively.
UTILITY FUNCTIONS
Descriptions follow for utility functions that may be use
ful when writing completion functions. Most of these
reside in the Base subdirectory. Like the example func
tions for commands in the distribution, the utility func
tions generating matches all follow the convention of
returning zero if they generated completions and non-zero
if no matching completions could be added.
When writing completion functions or other ZLE widgets
that call completion, it might be interesting to know
about two more features offered by the _main_complete
function. The arrays compprefuncs and comppostfuncs may be
set to contain names of functions that are to be called
immediately before or after completion has been tried. The
functions will only be called once, unless they put them
selves into the arrays again.
_all_labels [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ command args ... ]
This is a convenient interface to the _next_label
function below, implementing the loop shown in the
_next_label example. The command is the one that
should be called to generate the matches. The
options stored in the parameter name will automati
cally be inserted into the args given to the com
mand. Normally, they are put directly after the
command, but if one of the args is a single hyphen,
they are inserted directly before that. If the
hyphen is the last argument, that will be removed
from the argument list before the command is
called. This allows _all_labels to be used in
almost all cases where the matches can be generated
by a single call to the compadd builtin command or
by a call to one of the utility functions.
For example:
...
if _requested foo; then
...
_all_labels foo expl '...' compadd ... - $matches
fi
Will complete the strings from the matches parame
ter, using compadd with additional options which
will take precedence over those generated by
_all_labels.
_alternative [ -C name ] specs ...
This function is useful in simple cases where mul
tiple tags are available. Essentially, it imple
ments a loop like the one described for the _tags
function above.
The tags to use and the action to perform if a tag
is requested are described using the specs which
are of the form: `tag:descr:action'. The tags are
offered using _tags and if the tag is requested,
the action is executed with the given description
descr. The actions supported are those used by the
_arguments function (described below), without the
`->state' and `=...' forms.
For example, the action may be a simple function
call. With that one could do:
_alternative \
'users:user:_users' \
'hosts:host:_hosts'
to offer usernames and hostnames as possible
matches (which are generated by the _users and
_hosts functions respectively).
Note that, like _arguments this will also use
_all_labels to execute the actions, so one doesn't
need to call that explicitly unless another tag is
to be used, for example in a function called from
_alternative.
Like _tags this function supports the -C option to
give a different name for the argument context
field.
_arguments spec ...
This function can be used to complete words on the
line by describing the options and arguments which
may be passed to the command for which completion
is being performed. The description is given as
arguments to this function, with each spec
command. The forms of spec understood are:
n:message:action
n::message:action
This describes the n'th normal argument.
The message will be printed above the
matches generated and the action says what
can be completed in this position (see
below). If there are two colons before the
message, this describes an optional argu
ment. If the message contains only white
space, nothing will be printed above the
matches unless the action adds an explana
tion string itself.
:message:action
::message:action
Like the previous one, but describing the
next argument. I.e. if you want to describe
all arguments a command can get, you can
leave out the numbers in the description and
just use this form to describe them one
after another in the order they have to
appear on the line.
*:message:action
*::message:action
*:::message:action
This describes how arguments (usually
non-option arguments, those not beginning
with - or +) are to be completed when no
description with one of the first two forms
was given. This also means that any number
of arguments can be completed.
With two colons before the message, the
words special array and the CURRENT special
parameter are modified to refer only to the
normal arguments when the action is executed
or evaluated. With three colons before the
message they are modified to refer only to
the normal arguments covered by this
description.
optspec[description ...]
This describes an option and (if description
is given) the arguments that have to come
after the option. If no description is
given, this means to offer only the option
name as a possible completion in the right
places. (Note that the brackets, above,
around description, indicate that zero or
more descriptions may appear; but the
format. If brackets are used, they are part
of the optspec; see below.)
In the descriptions below, the option names
represented by optname are normally taken to
be multi-character names, and a word from
the line is considered to contain only one
option (or none). By giving the -s option
to _arguments before the first spec, each
optname is considered to be a single charac
ter and each word from the line may contain
more than one such option letter. However,
words beginning with two hyphens (like
`--prefix') are still considered to contain
only one option name. This allows the use
of the `-s' option to describe single-letter
options together with such long option
names.
The -s option may be combined with the
option -w to say that more option characters
are to be expected even after an option that
takes an argument. For example, if a com
mand takes the options `a' and `b', where
`a' takes an argument in the next word,
_arguments would normally not complete the
other option directly after `-a', but it
would allow that if given the -w option.
Similarly, the option -W may be given
together with -s to force completion of sin
gle-letter options even after options that
get an argument in the same word. For exam
ple, if a command takes the options `a' and
`b', where `a' needs an argument in the same
word, directly after the option character,
_arguments would normally only execute the
action for that argument and not offer other
single-letter options as possible comple
tions. If given the -W option, it will
offer other options as possible completions
after executing the action for the argument.
Note that, depending on the action, this may
mean that the other options can't really be
completed, but at least they will be listed.
For more control, use an utility function
like _guard in the argument's action.
The forms of optspec are:
*optspec
If the option may be given more than
once, a star (`*') must be added in
of optspec. Otherwise, if the
option is already on the line and to
the left of the cursor, it is not
offered as a possible completion
again.
-optname
+optname
In the simplest form the optspec is
just the option name beginning with
a minus or a plus sign, such as
`-foo'. The first argument for the
option (if any) must follow as a
separate word directly after the
option.
If the command accepts the option
with either a leading minus or a
leading plus sign, use either
`-+optname' or `+-optname' to define
both variants at once.
In all the following forms, the
leading `-' may be replaced or
paired with `+' in this way.
-optname-
The first argument of the option
must come directly after the option
name in the same word, as in
`-foo-:...'.
-optname+
The first argument may appear imme
diately after optname in the same
word, or may instead appear as a
separate word after the option.
-optname=
The argument may appear as the next
word, or in same word as the option
name provided that it is separated
from it by an equals sign.
-optname=-
The argument to the option must
appear after an equals sign in the
same word, and may not be given in
the next argument.
optspec[explanation]
An explanation string may be
appended to any of the preceding
brackets, as in `-q[query opera
tion]'.
The verbose style is used to decide
if these explanation strings should
be displayed with the option in a
completion listing.
If no bracketed explanation string
is given but the auto-description
style is set and only one argument
is described for this optspec, the
value of the style is displayed,
with any appearance of the sequence
`%d' in it replaced by the message
of the first description that fol
lows the optspec; see below.
Note that the special meaning of a leading or
trailing - or + in optspec means that when the com
mand to be completed accepts options like `-+' or
`-=', the second character has to be quoted with a
backslash, as in `-\+'.
Each description following an optspec must take one
of the following forms:
:message:action
::message:action
Describes a mandatory argument with one
colon, or an optional argument with two
colons. As in other forms of spec, the mes
sage will be printed above the matches gen
erated (unless it contains only white space,
see above) and the action says what can be
completed in this position.
:*pattern:message:action
:*pattern::message:action
:*pattern:::message:action
This describes multiple arguments. Only the
last description may be given in this form.
If the pattern is empty (i.e., :*:), all
following words on the line are to be com
pleted as described by the action; other
wise, all words up to a word matching the
pattern are to be completed using the
action.
When the message is preceded by two colons,
the words special array and the CURRENT spe
cial parameter are modified during the exe
cution or evaluation of the action to refer
preceded by three colons, they are modified
to refer only to the words covered by this
description.
Note that only one such `:*'-specification
is useful and no other argument specifica
tion may be given after it.
To include a colon in any optname, message, or action any
where above, it has to be preceded by a backslash, as
`\:'.
Each of the six forms of spec (yes, there are six, keep
track of the nestings) may be preceded by a list of option
names and argument numbers with which the option or argu
ment described is mutually exclusive. This list is given
in parentheses, as in `(-two -three 1)-one:...' or
`(-foo):...'. In the first example, the options `-two'
and `-three' and the first argument will not be offered as
possible completions if the option `-one' is on the line
before the cursor, and in the second example the option
`-foo' will not be offered if the argument described by
the specification is on the line.
The list may also contain a single star (*) as one of its
elements to specify that the description for the rest
arguments (i.e. a specification of the form `*:...')
should not be used, a colon (:) to specify that the
descriptions for all normal (non-option-) arguments should
not be used and a hyphen (-) to specify that the descrip
tions for all options should not be used. This paragraph
desperately needs rewriting.
To simplify writing writing functions that call _arguments
more than once, the specs may also start with the charac
ter `!' (exclamation mark) to make the spec not be com
pleted. However, if this is used with one of the forms
describing options, the option (and its arguments, if it
takes any) will be understood and skipped if they appear
on the command line. It's just that the option itself
will not be completed. This is intended to be used with an
array containing the options used in the first call to
arguments. The second call can then use
`\!${^global_options}' to ignore those options and com
plete only the ones understood in the current context.
In every case above, the action determines how the possi
ble completions should be generated. In places where no
sensible matches can be generated, the action should con
sist of only a space. This will make the message be dis
played but no possible completions listed. Note that even
in this case the colon at the end of the message is
needed. The only case where it can be left is when neither
Except for the `->string' form below, the action will be
executed by calling the _all_labels function to process
all tag labels, so one doesn't need to call that explic
itly unless another tag is to be used, for example in a
function called in the action.
When only one of a fixed set of strings can be completed,
the action can consist of these strings as a list in
parentheses, as in:
:foo:(foo bar baz)
Such a list in doubled parentheses should contain strings
consisting of the string to complete followed by `\:' and
a description, as in:
:foo:((a\:bar b\:baz))
The matches will be listed together with their descrip
tions if the description style for the values tag is set.
An action of the form `->string' is used by functions that
implement a state machine. In this case, the `string's
(with all leading and trailing spaces and tabs removed) of
all actions that have to be used will be stored in the
global array state. The function returns with a non-zero
return value if the cursor is not in a position where
options can be completed or if the current word could not
be completed to an option. But if the -R option is given
to _arguments, the function will instead return with a
return value of 300 (to make it distinguishable from other
return values) after setting the global `context', `line'
and `opt_args' parameters as described below, and without
resetting any changes made to the special parameters such
as PREFIX and words. This enables wrapper functions
around _arguments to be able to find out if they have to
make sure that the special completion parameters are not
reset when they return.
Note that this means that a function calling _arguments
with at least one action containing such a `->string' has
to declare appropriate local parameters as in:
local context state line
typeset -A opt_args
This will ensure that _arguments does not create unused
global parameters.
A string in braces is evaluated to generate the matches
and if the action does not begin with an opening parenthe
ses or brace, it is also split into separate words and
words will be invoked unchanged, otherwise it will be
invoked with some extra strings placed after the first
word which can be given as arguments to the compadd
builtin command and which make sure that the message given
in the description will be shown above the matches. These
arguments are taken from the array parameter `expl' which
will be set up before executing the action and hence may
be used in it (normally in an expansion like `$expl[@]').
If the action starts with `= ' (an equals sign followed by
a space), _arguments will insert the contents of the argu
ment field of the current context as the new first element
in the words special array and increments the value of the
CURRENT special parameter. In other words, it inserts a
dummy element in the words array and makes CURRENT still
point to the word in that array where the cursor is. This
is only really useful when used with one of the forms that
make _arguments modify the words array to contain only
some of the words from the line, i.e. one of the argument
description forms where the message is preceded by two or
three colons. For example, when the function called in the
action for such an argument itself uses _arguments, the
dummy element is needed to make that second call to _argu
ments use all words from the restricted range for argument
parsing. Without the inserted dummy element, the first
word in the range would be taken (by the second _argu
ments) to be the command name and hence ignored.
During the evaluation or execution of the action the array
`line' will be set to the command name and normal argu
ments from the command line, i.e. to the words from the
command line excluding all options and their arguments.
These are stored in the associative array `opt_args',
using the option names as keys and their arguments as the
values. For options that have more than one argument these
are given as one string, separated by colons. All colons
in the original arguments are preceded with backslashes.
The parameter `context' (set only in the calling function
when using an action of the form `->string', not during
the evaluation of other actions) is set to the automati
cally created context names. These are either strings of
the form `option-opt-n' for the n'th argument of the
option -opt, or strings of the form `argument-n' for the
n'th argument (for rest arguments the n is the string
`rest'). For example, when completing the argument of the
-o option, the name is `option-o-1' and for the second
normal (non-option-) argument it is `argument-2'.
Also, during the evaluation of the action, the context
name in the curcontext parameter is changed by appending
the same string that is stored in the context parameter.
and arguments with the sets separated by single hyphens.
The specifications before the first hyphen are shared by
all sets given after the first hyphen. The first word in
every other set gives the name of the set. This name may
appear in exclusion lists in the specifications, either
alone or before one of the possible values described above
(with a `-' between the name and the rest).
For example:
_arguments \
-a \
- set1 \
-c \
- set2 \
-d \
':arg:(x2 y2)'
This defines two sets. When the command line contains the
option `-c', the `-d' option and the argument will not be
considered possible completions. When it contains `-d' or
an argument, the option `-c' will not be completed any
more, but if `-a' is given, both sets will still be con
sidered valid, because it appears before the first hyphen,
so both sets contain this option.
If the name-string is of the form `(name)' then all speci
fications in the set have an implicit exclusion list con
taining the name of the set, i.e. all specifications are
mutual exclusive with all other specifications in the same
set. This is useful for defining multiple sets of options
which are mutually exclusive and in which the options are
aliases for each other. E.g.:
_arguments \
-a -b \
- '(compress)' \
{-c,--compress}'[compress]' \
- '(uncompress)' \
{-d,--decompress}'[decompress]'
Note that using multiple sets will be slower than using
only one set because the completion code has to parse the
command line once for every set. So more than one set
should only be used if the command syntax is too compli
cated. Note also that an option specification with
rest-arguments (as in `-foo:*:...') often allows the use
of multiple sets to be avoided.
To simplify the specifications for commands with standard
option parsing, the options -S and -A may be given. With
-S, no option will be completed after a `--' on the line
and this argument will otherwise be ignored. With -A, no
ment on the line. The -A has to be followed by a pattern
matching all strings which are not to be taken as argu
ments. For example, to make _arguments stop completing
options after the first normal argument, but ignoring all
strings starting with a hyphen even if they are not
described by one of the optspecs, one would use: `-A
"-*"'.
Another option supported is `-O name'. The name will be
taken as the name of an array and its elements will be
given to functions called to generate matches when execut
ing the actions. For example, this allows one to give
options for the compadd builtin that should be used for
all actions.
Also, the -M option followed by a string may be given
before the first description. The string will be used as
the match specification when completing option names and
values instead of the default `r:|[_-]=* r:|=*'.
Finally, the option -C can be given to make _arguments
modify the curcontext parameter when an action of the form
`->state' is used. This parameter is used to keep track of
the current context and in this case it (and not the
parameter context as explained above) has to be made local
to make sure that calling functions don't use the modified
value. Also, the local version of curcontext has to be
initialised with the old value as in:
local curcontext="$curcontext"
The function can also be made to automatically complete
long options for commands that support the `--help' option
as, for example, most of the GNU commands do. For this,
the string `--' must be given as one argument and if it
is, the command from the line is invoked with the `--help'
option and its output is parsed to find possible option
names. Note that this means that you should be careful to
make sure that this feature is not used for a command that
does not support this option.
For such automatically found options that get an argument
after an `=', the function also tries to automatically
find out what should be completed as the argument. The
possible completions for option-arguments can be described
with the arguments after the `--' (which are not used as
described above). Each argument contains one description
of the form `pattern:message:action'. The message and the
action have the same format as for the normal option
descriptions described above. The action will be executed
to complete arguments of options whose description in the
output of the command from the line with the `--help'
option matches the pattern. For example:
'*=FILE*:file:_files' \
'*=DIR*:directory:_files -/'
Here, `yes' and `no' will be completed as the argument of
options whose description ends in a star, file names for
options that contain the substring `=FILE' in the descrip
tion, and paths for options whose description contains
`=DIR'. In fact, the last two patterns are not needed
since this function always completes files for option
descriptions containing `=FILE' and paths for option
descriptions that contain `=DIR' or `=PATH'. These builtin
patterns can be overridden by patterns given as arguments,
however.
Note also that _arguments tries to find out automatically
if the argument for an option is optional. If it fails to
automatically detect this, the colon before the message
can be doubled to tell it about this as described for the
normal option descriptions above.
If the pattern ends in `(-)', this will removed from the
pattern and the action will be used only directly after
the `=', not in the next word. I.e., this is like a normal
specification as described above using `=-'.
The option `-i patterns' (which must be given after the
`--') can be used to give patterns for options which
should not be completed. The patterns can be given as the
name of an array parameter or as a literal list in paren
theses. E.g. `-i "(--(en|dis)able-FEATURE*)"' will make
the options `--enable-FEATURE' and `--disable-FEATURE' be
ignored. The option `-s pairs' (again, after the `--') can
be used to describe option aliases. Each pair consists of
a pattern and a replacement. E.g. some configure-scripts
describe options only as `--enable-foo', but also accept
`--disable-foo'. To allow completion of the second form,
one would use `-s "(#--enable- --disable-)"'.
Example:
_arguments '-l+:left border:' \
'-format:paper size:(letter A4)' \
'*-copy:output file:_files::resolution:(300 600)' \
':postscript file:_files -g \*.\(ps\|eps\)' \
'*:page number:'
This describes three options: `-l', `-format', and
`-copy'. The first one gets one argument described as
`left border' for which no completion will be offered
because of the empty action. The argument may come
directly after the `-l' or it may be given as the next
word on the line. The `-format' option gets one argument
(in the next word) described as `paper size' for which
`-copy' option differs from the first two in that it may
appear more than once on the command line and in that it
accepts two arguments. The first one is mandatory and will
be completed as a filename. The second one is optional
(because of the second colon before the description `reso
lution') and will be completed from the strings `300' and
`600'.
The last two descriptions say what should be completed as
arguments. The first one describes the first argument as a
`postscript file' and makes files ending in `ps' or `eps'
be completed. The last description says that all other
arguments are `page numbers' but does not give possible
completions.
_cache_invalid cache_identifier
This function returns 0 if the completions cache
corresponding to the given cache identifier needs
rebuilding. It determines this by looking up the
cache-policy style for the current context, and if
it exists, runs the function of the same name, sup
plying the full path to the relevant cache file as
the only argument.
Example:
_example_caching_policy () {
# rebuild if cache is more than a week old
oldp=( "$1"(Nmw+1) )
(( $#oldp ))
}
_call_function return name [ args ... ]
If a function name exists, it is called with the
arguments args. Unless it is the empty string or a
single hyphen, return is taken as the name of a
parameter and the return status from the called
function is stored in it. The return value of
_call_function itself is zero if the function name
exists and was called and non-zero otherwise.
_call_program tag string ...
This function is used in places where a command is
called, making it possible for the user to override
the default command call. It looks up the command
style with the supplied tag. If the style is set,
its value is used as the command to execute.
In any case, the strings from the call to
_call_program or from the style are concatenated
with spaces between them and the resulting string
is evaluated. The return value is the return value
of the command called.
...
This function is used to complete combinations of
values such as pairs of hostnames and usernames.
The possible values will be taken from the style
whose name is given as the second argument. The
first argument is the tag to use to do the lookup.
The style name should consist of multiple parts
separated by hyphens which are then used as field
names. Known values for such fields can be given
after the second argument in arguments of the form
`field=pattern'. The first argument without an
equals sign is taken as the name of the field for
which completions should be generated.
The matches generated will be taken from the value
of the style. These values should contain the pos
sible values for the combinations where the values
for the different fields are separated by colons or
characters matching the pattern given after the -s
option to _combination; normally this is used to
define character classes like the `-s "[:@]"' used
for the users-hosts style.
Only the values for the requested fields for which
the patterns given in the `field=pattern' match the
respective fields in the strings from the style
value are generated as possible matches.
If no style with the given name is defined for the
given tag but a function named with the name of the
requested field preceded by an underscore is
defined, that function will be called to generate
the matches. This is also done if none of the
strings in the value of the style match all the
patterns given as arguments.
If the same name is used for more than one field,
in both the `field=pattern' and the argument that
gives the field name to complete for, the number of
the field (starting with one) may be given after
the fieldname, separated from it by a colon.
All arguments after the requested field name are
passed to compadd when generating matches from the
style value, or to the functions for the fields if
they are called.
_contexts names ...
This function looks up the definitions for the con
text and command names given as arguments and calls
the handler functions for them if there is a defi
nition (given with the compdef function). For
might use `_contexts -math-' to include the comple
tions generated for mathematical environments.
_describe [ -o ] descr name1 [ name2 ] opts ... -- ...
This function is useful for preparing a list of
command options or arguments, together with their
descriptions descr, as matches. Multiple groups
separated by -- can be supplied, potentially with
different completion options opts.
The descr is taken as a string to display above the
matches if the format style for the descriptions
tag is set. After this come one or two names of
arrays followed by options to pass to compadd. The
first array contains the possible completions with
their descriptions in the form `completion:descrip
tion'. If a second array is given, it should have
the same number of elements as the first one and
the corresponding elements are added as possible
completions instead of the completion strings from
the first array. The completion list will retain
the descriptions from the first array. Finally, a
set of completion options can appear.
If the option `-o' appears before the first argu
ment, the matches added will be treated as option
names (typically following a `-', `--' or `+' on
the command line). This makes _describe use the
prefix-hidden, prefix-needed and verbose styles to
find out if the strings should be added at all and
if the descriptions should be shown. Without the
`-o' option, only the verbose style is used.
_describe uses the _all_labels function to generate
the matches, so it does not need to appear inside a
loop over tag labels.
_description [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ specs ... ]
This function is called before completions are
added (typically by a call to compadd); it tests
various styles and arranges for any necessary
options to be passed on to compadd. The styles are
tested in the current context using the given tag;
options are put into the array called name for
passing on to compadd; the description for the cur
rent set of matches is passed in descr. The styles
tested are: format (which is first tested for the
given tag and then for the descriptions tag if that
isn't defined), hidden, matcher, ignored-patterns
and group-name (the last are tested only for the
tag given as the first argument). This function
also calls the _setup function which tests some
more styles.
will be modified so that the sequence `%d' is
replaced by the descr given as the third argument
without any leading or trailing white space. If,
after removing the white space, the descr is the
empty string, the format style will not be used and
the options put into the name array will not con
tain an explanation string to be displayed above
the matches. If _description is called with more
than three arguments, the additional specs should
be of the form `char:str' and every appearance of
`%char' in the format string will be replaced by
string.
The options placed in the array will also make sure
that the matches are placed in a separate group,
depending on the value of the group-name style.
Normally a sorted group will be used for this (with
the `-J' option), but if an option starting with
`-V', `-J', `-1', or `-2' is given, that option
will be included in the array, so that it is possi
ble to make the group unsorted by giving the option
`-V', `-1V', or `-2V'.
In most cases, the function will be used like this:
local expl
_description files expl file
compadd "$expl[@]" - "$files[@]"
Note the use of the parameter expl, the hyphen, and
the list of matches. Almost all calls to compadd
within the completion system use a similar format;
this ensures that user-specified styles are cor
rectly passed down to the builtins which implement
the internals of completion.
_files The function _files uses the file-patterns style
and calls _path_files with all the arguments it was
passed except for -g and -/. These two options are
used depending on the setting of the file-patterns
style.
See _path_files below for a description of the full
set of options accepted by _files.
_gnu_generic
This function is a simple wrapper around the _argu
ments function described above. It can be used to
automatically complete long options for commands
that understand the `--help' option. It is not
intended to be used from completion functions but
as a top-level completion function in its own
right. For example, to enable option completion
compdef _gnu_generic foo bar
in one of the initialization files after the call
to compinit.
The default installation uses this function only to
generate completions for some GNU-commands because
to complete the options, the command has to be
called and hence it shouldn't be used if one can't
be sure that the command understands the `--help'
option.
_guard [ options ] pattern [ descr ]
This function is intended to be used in an action
of functions like _arguments. It returns immedi
ately with a non-zero return value if the string to
be completed does not match the pattern. If the
pattern matches, the descr is displayed and the
function returns zero if the word to complete is
not empty and non-zero otherwise.
The pattern may be preceded by those options under
stood by compadd that are passed down from
_description, namely -M, -J, -V, -1, -2, -n, -F and
-X. All of these options, except -X, will be
ignored. If the -X option appears, the description
following it will be used as the string to display
if the pattern matches, unless the option descr is
given to _guard itself, which will then take prece
dence.
As an example, consider a command taking the
options -n and -none, where -n has to be followed
by a numeric value in the same word. By using
either of:
_argument '-n-:numeric value:_guard "[0-9]#"' '-none'
or
_argument '-n-: :_guard "[0-9]#" "numeric value"' '-none'
_arguments can be made to both display the message
`numeric value' and complete options after
`-n<TAB>'. If the `-n' is already followed by one
or more digits (matching the pattern given to
_guard), only the message will be displayed and if
the `-n' is followed by another character, only
options are completed.
_message [ -r ] descr
The descr is used like the third argument to the
string will always be shown whether or not matches
were generated. This is useful to display help
texts in places where no completions can be gener
ated automatically.
This function also uses the format style for the
messages tag in preference to the format style for
the descriptions tag. The latter is used only if
the former is unset.
If the -r option is given, no style is used and the
descr is used literally as the string to display.
This is only used in cases where that string is
taken from some pre-processed argument list con
taining an expanded description.
_multi_parts sep array
This function receives two arguments: a separator
character and an array. As usual, the array may be
either the name of an array parameter or a literal
array in the form `(foo bar)' (i.e. a list of words
separated by white space in parentheses). With
these arguments, this function will complete to
strings from the array where the parts separated by
the separator character are completed indepen
dently. For example, the _tar function from the
distribution caches the pathnames from the tar file
in an array, and then calls this function to com
plete these names in the way normal filenames are
completed by the _path_files function, by using
`_multi_parts / patharray'.
If the -i option is present, then any time there is
a unique match it will immediately be inserted even
if that requires additional separators to be
inserted as well. When completing from a fixed set
of possible completions which are really words,
this is often the expected behaviour; however, if
_multi_parts should behave like completing path
names, the -i option should not be used.
Like other utility functions, this function accepts
the `-V', `-J', `-1', `-2', `-n', `-f', `-X', `-M',
`-P', `-S', `-r', `-R', and `-q' options and passes
them to the compadd builtin.
_next_label [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ options ... ]
This function should be called repeatedly to gener
ate the tag labels. On each call it will check if
another tag label is to be used and, if there is at
least one, zero is returned. If no more tag labels
are to be used, a non-zero status is returned.
given to the _description function using the tag
label instead of the first argument as appropriate.
The options given after the descr should be other
options to be used for compadd or whatever function
is to be called to add the matches. _next_label
will store these options in the parameter whose
name is given as the second argument. This is done
in such a way that the description given by the
user to the tag-order style is preferred over the
one given to _next_label.
Note that this function must not be called without
a previous call to _tags or _requested because it
uses the tag label for the current tag found by
these functions.
A normal use of this function for the tag labels of
the tag foo looks like this:
local expl ret=1
...
if _requested foo; then
...
while _next_label foo expl '...'; do
compadd "$expl[@]" ... && ret=0
done
...
fi
return ret
_normal
This function is used for normal command comple
tion. It has two tasks: completing the first word
on the command line as the name of a command, and
completing the arguments to this command. In the
second case, the name of the command is looked up
to see if special completions exists, including
completions defined for patterns which match the
name. If none is found, completion is performed
for the context -default-.
The function can also be called by other completion
functions which need to treat a range of words as a
command line. For example, the function to com
plete after the pre-command specifiers such as
nohup removes the first word from the words array,
decrements the CURRENT parameter, then calls _nor
mal again, with the effect that `nohup cmd ...' is
treated the same way was `cmd ...'.
If the command name matches a pattern, the parame
ter _compskip is checked after the call to the
same effect here as in the -first- context: if it
is set, no more completion functions are called
even if there are no matches so far.
_options
This can be used to complete option names. It uses
a matching specification that ignores a leading
`no', ignores underscores and allows the user to
type upper-case letters which will match their
lower-case counterparts. All arguments passed to
this function are propagated unchanged to the com
padd builtin.
_options_set and _options_unset
These functions complete only set or unset options,
with the same matching specification used in the
_options function.
Note that you need to uncomment a few lines in the
_main_complete function for these functions to work
properly. The lines in question are used to store
the option settings in effect before the completion
widget locally sets the options it needs. Hence
these options are not generally used by the comple
tion system.
_parameters
This should be used to complete parameter names.
_parameters can take a -g pattern option which
specifies that only parameters whose type matches
the pattern should be completed. Strings of the
same form as those returned by the t parameter
expansion flag are used here when matching the
type. All other arguments are passed unchanged to
the compadd builtin.
_path_files
The function _path_files is used throughout the
completion system to complete filenames. It allows
completion of partial paths. For example, the
string `/u/i/s/sig' may be completed to
`/usr/include/sys/signal.h'.
The options accepted by both _path_files and _files
are:
-f Complete all filenames. This is the
default.
-/ Specifies that only directories should be
completed.
Specifies that only files matching the pat
tern should be completed.
-W paths
Specifies path prefixes that are to be
prepended to the string from the line to
generate the filenames but that should not
be inserted in the line or shown in a com
pletion listing. Here, paths may be the
name of an array parameter, a literal list
of paths enclosed in parentheses or an abso
lute pathname.
-F This option from the compadd builtin gives
direct control over which filenames should
be ignored. If the option is not present,
the ignored-patterns style is used.
These functions also accept the `-J', `-V', `-1',
`-2', `-n', `-X', `-M', `-P', `-S', `-q', `-r', and
`-R' options from the compadd builtin.
Finally, the _path_files function uses the styles
expand, ambiguous, special-dirs, list-suffixes and
file-sort.
_regex_arguments name specs ...
This function is a compiler to generate a comple
tion function. The first argument specifies the
name of the generated function while the remaining
arguments specify a completion as a set of regular
expressions with actions. The generated function
has the structure of a finite-state machine whose
states correspond to the state (i.e. the context)
of the completion. This state machine uses a com
mand line, which comes from the concatenation of
the words array up to the current cursor position
using null characters as separators with no extra
quotation. This is analysed and at the end the
appropriate action is executed.
Specification arguments take one of following
forms, in which metacharacters such as `(', `)',
`#' and `|' should be quoted.
/pattern/ [%lookahead%] [-guard]
[:tag:descr:action]
This is a primitive element, corresponding
to one state of the compiled state machine.
The state is entered if `(#b)((#B)pat
tern)(#B)lookahead*' matches the command
line string. If it matches, `guard' is
evaluated and its return status is examined;
otherwise the test fails and other candi
dates are tried. The pattern string `[]' is
guaranteed never to match.
If the test succeeds and the state is
entered, the left part of the command line
string matched as pattern is removed and the
next state is tried, proceeding from inside
to outside and from left to right.
If no test succeeds and the remaining com
mand line string contains no null character,
the completion target is restricted to the
remainder of the command line string and
actions for the target are executed. In
this case, nothing is actually removed from
the command line string so that any previous
or neighbouring state may also have
actionss. actionss evaluation are ordered
by the tag-order style and specified tag by
_alternative. So, the various formats sup
ported by _alternative can be used in
action. descr is used for setting up the
array parameter expl.
/pattern/+ [%lookahead%] [-guard]
[:tag:descr:action]
This is similar to `/pattern/ ...' but the
left part of the command line string is also
considered as part of the completion target.
/pattern/- [%lookahead%] [-guard]
[:tag:descr:action]
This is similar to `/pattern/ ...' but the
actions of the current and previous states
are ignored even if the following state's
`pattern' matches the empty string.
( spec )
This groups specs.
spec # This allows any number of repetitions of
spec.
spec spec
This represents the concatenation of two
specs.
spec | spec
Either of the two specs can be matched.
_requested [ -12VJ ] tag [ name descr [ command args ... ]
]
already registered by a call to _tags (see below)
is requested and hence completion should be per
formed for it; it returns status zero if the tag is
requested and non-zero otherwise. This will usu
ally be done in a loop such as the following:
_tags foo bar baz
while _tags; do
if _requested foo; then
... # perform completion for foo
fi
... # test the tags bar and baz in the same way
... # exit loop if matches were generated
done
Note that the test for whether matches were gener
ated is not performed until the end of the _tags
loop. This is so that the user can specify a set
of tags to be tested at the same time in the
tag-order parameter.
If the name and the descr are given, _requested
calls the _description function with these argu
ments, including the options.
If the command is given, the _all_labels function
will be called immediately with the same arguments.
This is often useful to do both the testing of the
tag, getting the description for the matches and
adding the matches at once. For example:
local expl ret=1
_tags foo bar baz
while _tags; do
_requested foo expl 'description' \
compadd foobar foobaz && ret=0
...
(( ret )) || break
done
Note that this means that the command has to accept
the options that have to be passed down to compadd.
_retrieve_cache cache_identifier
This function retrieves completion information from
the file given by cache_identifier, stored in a
directory specified by the cache-path style
(defaults to ~/.zsh/cache). The return value is
zero if retrieval was successful. It will only
attempt retrieval if the use-cache style is set, so
you can call this function without worrying about
whether the user wanted to use the caching layer.
_sep_parts
This function is passed alternating arrays and sep
arators as arguments. The arrays specify comple
tions for parts of strings to be separated by the
separators. The arrays may be the names of array
parameters or a quoted list of words in parenthe
ses. For example, with the array `hosts=(ftp
news)' the call `_sep_parts '(foo bar)' @ hosts'
will complete the string `f' to `foo' and the
string `b@n' to `bar@news'.
This function passes the `-V', `-J', `-1', `-2',
`-n', `-X', `-M', `-P', `-S', `-r', `-R', and `-q'
options and their arguments to the compadd builtin
used to add the matches.
_setup tag [ group ]
This function expects a tag as its argument and
sets up the special parameters used by the comple
tion system appropriately for the tag, using styles
such as list-colors and last-prompt.
The optional group gives the name of the group in
which the matches will be placed. If it is not
given, the tag is used as the group name.
Note that this function is called automatically
from _description so that one normally doesn't have
to call it explicitly.
_store_cache cache_identifier vars ...
This function, when combined with _retrieve_cache
and _cache_invalid, makes it easy to implement a
caching layer for your completion functions. If a
completion function needs to perform a costly oper
ation in order to generate data which is used to
calculate completions, you can store that data in
variables, and use this function to dump the values
of those variables to a file. Then, if they are
needed in subsequent shell invocations, they can be
retrieved quickly from that file via
_retrieve_cache, avoiding the needly for repeating
the costly operation.
The cache_identifier specifies the file which the
data should be dumped to, and is stored in a direc
tory specified by the cache-path style (defaults to
~/.zsh/cache). The remaining vars arguments are
the variables to dump to the file.
The return value is zero if storage was successful.
The function will only attempt storage if the
tion without worrying about whether the user wanted
to use the caching layer.
If your completion function avoids calling
_retrieve_cache when it already has the completion
data in the environment, it should probably at
least call _cache_invalid to check whether this
data and the data cached on disk is still valid.
See the _perl_modules completion function for a
simple example of usage of this caching layer.
_tags [ -C name [ tags ... ] ]
If called with arguments, these are taken as the
names of the tags for the types of matches the
calling completion function can generate in the
current context. These tags are stored internally
and sorted by using the tag-order style. Following
calls to this function without arguments from the
same function will then select the first, second,
etc. set of tags requested by the user. To test if
a certain tag should be tried, the _requested func
tion has to be called (see above).
The return value is zero if at least one of the
tags is requested and non-zero otherwise.
This function also accepts the -C option followed
by a name. This name is temporarily (i.e. not visi
ble outside _tags) stored in the argument field of
the context name in the curcontext parameter. This
allows _tags to be made to use a more specific con
text name without having to change and reset the
curcontext parameter (which would otherwise have
the same effect).
_values specs ...
This is used to complete values (strings) and their
arguments or lists of such values. It can be used
in two ways.
If the first argument is the option `-O name', this
will be used in the same way as by the _arguments
function, in other words the elements of the name
array will be given to calls to compadd and when
executing an action.
Otherwise, if the first argument (or the first
argument after the `-O name' option if that is
used) is the option `-s', the next argument is used
as the character that separates multiple values.
Thus the values completed appear in the same word
on the command line, unlike completion using
The first argument (after the options and separator
character if they are given) is used as a string to
print as a description before listing the values.
All other arguments describe the possible values
and their arguments in the same format used for the
description of options by the _arguments function
(see above). The only differences are that no
minus or plus sign is required at the beginning,
that values can have only one argument and that
those forms of actions beginning with an equal sign
are not supported.
The character separating a value from its argument
can be set using the option -S (like -s, followed
by the character to use as the separator in the
next argument). If this option is not used, the
equal sign will be used as the separator.
Example:
_values -s , 'description' \
'*foo[bar]' \
'(two)*one[number]:first count:' \
'two[another number]::second count:(1 2 3)'
This describes three possible values: `foo', `one',
and `two'. The first is described as `bar', takes
no argument and may appear more than once. The
second is described as `number', may appear more
than once, and takes one mandatory argument
described as `first count' for which no action is
specified so that it will not be completed automat
ically. The `(two)' at the beginning says that if
the value `one' is on the line, the value `two'
will not be considered to be a possible completion
anymore. Finally, the last value (`two') is
described as `another number' and takes an optional
argument described as `second count' which will be
completed from the strings `1', `2', and `3'. The
_values function will complete lists of these val
ues separated by commas.
Like _arguments this function temporarily adds
another context name component to the current con
text name while executing the action. Here this
name is just the name of the value for which the
argument is completed.
To decide if the descriptions for the values (not
those for the arguments) should be printed, the
style verbose is used.
function uses the associative array val_args to
report values and their arguments, although other
wise this is the same as the opt_args association
used by _arguments. This also means that the func
tion calling _values should declare the state,
line, context and val_args parameters as in:
local context state line
typeset -A val_args
when using an action of the form `->string'. With
this function the context parameter will be set to
the name of the value whose argument is to be com
pleted.
Note also that _values normally adds the character
used as the separator between values as a
auto-removable suffix so that users don't have to
type it themselves. But when using a `->string'
action _values can't do that because the matches
for the argument will be generated by the calling
function. To get the usual behaviour, the imple
mentor of the calling function has to add the suf
fix directly by passing the options `-qS x' (where
x is the separator character specified with the -s
option of _values) to the function generating the
matches or to the compadd builtin.
Like _arguments, _values supports the -C option in
which case you have to make the parameter curcon
text local instead of context (as described above).
_wanted [ -C name ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr command args
...
In many contexts, completion will generate one par
ticular set of matches (usually corresponding to a
single tag); however, it is still necessary to
decide whether the user requires matches of this
type. This function is useful in such a case.
Like _requested, it should be passed arguments as
for _description. It calls _tags with the given
tag and if that returns zero (so that the tag is
requested by the user) it calls _description.
Hence to offer only one tag and immediately use the
description generated:
_wanted tag expl 'description' \
compadd matches...
Unlike _requested, however, _wanted cannot be
called without the command. This is because
_wanted also implements the loop over the tags, not
not be called in the middle of a _tags loop.
Note that, as for _requested, the command has to
accept the options that have to be passed down to
compadd.
Like _tags this function supports the -C option to
give a different name for the argument context
field.
COMPLETION DIRECTORIES
In the source distribution, the files are contained in
various subdirectories of the Completion directory. They
may have been installed in the same structure, or into one
single function directory. The following is a description
of the files found in the original directory structure.
If you wish to alter an installed file, you will need to
copy it to some directory which appears earlier in your
fpath than the standard directory where it appears.
Base The core functions and special completion widgets
automatically bound to keys. You will certainly
need most of these, though will probably not need
to alter them. Many of these are documented above.
Zsh Functions for completing arguments of shell builtin
commands and utility functions for this. Some of
these are also used by functions from the Unix
directory.
Unix Functions for completing arguments of external com
mands and suites of commands. They may need modi
fying for your system, although in many cases some
attempt is made to decide which version of a com
mand is present. For example, completion for the
mount command tries to determine the system it is
running on, while completion for many other utili
ties try to decide whether the GNU version of the
command is in use, and hence whether the --help
option is supported..
X, AIX, BSD, ...
Completion and utility function for commands avail
able only on some systems.
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