Re: Directory name completion blocks when it shouldn't

[Tim Van Holder]

(Sorry, failed to copy the list on this reply)

On 12/5/06, Richard Stallman <address@hidden> wrote:
>     With M-x cd, entering "/t" TAB completes to "/top-dir/" like it should,
>     but "/top-dir/s" TAB does NOT complete to "/top-dir/sub-dir/" even though
>     there is only 1 matching directory (TAB TAB shows only "sub-dir" as only
>     alternative); it's necessary to disambiguate the directory name from the
>     names of any and all files in the same location for tab completion to
>     proceed.  This seems like a bug.
>
> That is correct behavior, because subdirectory names are NOT the only
> valid inputs.  Suppose the directory also contains img_0304.jpg,
> img_0305.jpg, ... img_0315.jpg.  You might want to type `i TAB *.jpg'.

For dired, yes, for "M-x cd", NO - why would "cd" accept a filename, it
makes no sense.  I feel it's a bug specifically because TAB TAB shows
a list of 1 matching name; if there's only 1 matching name, TAB should
have performed the completion.
Note that even for dired I would currently expect r-d-n to be used because
the prompt says I need to specify a directory; since it accepts anything,
treating anything that is not an exact directory name as a wildcard,
perhaps that prompt should be amended to "Dired (directory or wildcard):".