Re: `complete -f` does not work at all.

[Martin D Kealey]

On Fri, 6 Dec 2024, 15:12 Frederick Abell, <fkabell3@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Description:
> `compete -f`/`complete -A file` do not work at all, whilst `complete
> -d`/`complete -A directory` work fine.
>
> $ cat <tab>
> a_dir/  b_dir/  c_file  d_file
>
> # I was expecting to only see c_file and d_file.


Firstly this seems to be You seem to be under the misapprehension that
directories are not files. Unless specified otherwise "file" means any kind
of inode.

Secondly, even if you do think that “complete -f” is (or should be)
restricted to S_ISREG inodes, completions only generate one path component
at a time.

Try this:
  mkdir -p e/f/g/h
  touch e/f/g/h/i

  cat e‹tab›‹tab›‹tab›‹tab›‹tab›

Now does the behaviour make more sense?

As for “why not generate full paths”, it can be prohibitively expensive to
look recursively inside each subdirectory to see whether it contains any
files. Consider what doing this would mean if you typed:

  cat /‹tab›‹tab›

If you're still in doubt, run:

  time find / > /dev/null

It can also be literally impossible to generate all possible full paths;
try this

  rm e/f/g/h/i
  ln -s ../../../e e/f/g/h/i
  cat e‹tab›‹tab›‹tab›‹tab›‹tab›‹tab›‹tab›‹tab›‹tab›‹tab›

> Someone from 2008 appears to have the same issue

Ah yes, the internet, an infinite source of misinformation and
misunderstanding. Now that you understand the issue, please add a new reply
to that page.

-Martin

>