1ZSHCOMPSYS(1) General Commands Manual ZSHCOMPSYS(1)
2
6 zshcompsys - zsh completion system
7
9 This describes the shell code for the `new' completion system, referred
10 to as compsys. It is written in shell functions based on the features
11 described in zshcompwid(1).
12 The features are contextual, sensitive to the point at which completion
14 is started. Many completions are already provided. For this reason, a
15 user can perform a great many tasks without knowing any details beyond
16 how to initialize the system, which is described below in INITIALIZA‐
17 TION.
18 The context that decides what completion is to be performed may be
20 · an argument or option position: these describe the position on
21 the command line at which completion is requested. For example
22 `first argument to rmdir, the word being completed names a
23 directory';
24 · a special context, denoting an element in the shell's syntax.
27 For example `a word in command position' or `an array sub‐
28 script'.
29 A full context specification contains other elements, as we shall
32 describe.
33 Besides commands names and contexts, the system employs two more con‐
35 cepts, styles and tags. These provide ways for the user to configure
36 the system's behaviour.
37 Tags play a dual role. They serve as a classification system for the
39 matches, typically indicating a class of object that the user may need
40 to distinguish. For example, when completing arguments of the ls com‐
41 mand the user may prefer to try files before directories, so both of
42 these are tags. They also appear as the rightmost element in a context
43 specification.
44 Styles modify various operations of the completion system, such as out‐
46 put formatting, but also what kinds of completers are used (and in what
47 order), or which tags are examined. Styles may accept arguments and
48 are manipulated using the zstyle command described in see zshmod‐
49 ules(1).
50 In summary, tags describe what the completion objects are, and style
52 how they are to be completed. At various points of execution, the com‐
53 pletion system checks what styles and/or tags are defined for the cur‐
54 rent context, and uses that to modify its behavior. The full descrip‐
55 tion of context handling, which determines how tags and other elements
56 of the context influence the behaviour of styles, is described below in
57 COMPLETION SYSTEM CONFIGURATION.
58 When a completion is requested, a dispatcher function is called; see
60 the description of _main_complete in the list of control functions
61 below. This dispatcher decides which function should be called to pro‐
62 duce the completions, and calls it. The result is passed to one or more
63 completers, functions that implement individual completion strategies:
64 simple completion, error correction, completion with error correction,
65 menu selection, etc.
66 More generally, the shell functions contained in the completion system
68 are of two types:
69 · those beginning `comp' are to be called directly; there are only
70 a few of these;
71 · those beginning `_' are called by the completion code. The
74 shell functions of this set, which implement completion behav‐
75 iour and may be bound to keystrokes, are referred to as `wid‐
76 gets'. These proliferate as new completions are required.
77
80 If the system was installed completely, it should be enough to call the
81 shell function compinit from your initialization file; see the next
82 section. However, the function compinstall can be run by a user to
83 configure various aspects of the completion system.
84 Usually, compinstall will insert code into .zshrc, although if that is
86 not writable it will save it in another file and tell you that file's
87 location. Note that it is up to you to make sure that the lines added
88 to .zshrc are actually run; you may, for example, need to move them to
89 an earlier place in the file if .zshrc usually returns early. So long
90 as you keep them all together (including the comment lines at the start
91 and finish), you can rerun compinstall and it will correctly locate and
92 modify these lines. Note, however, that any code you add to this sec‐
93 tion by hand is likely to be lost if you rerun compinstall, although
94 lines using the command `zstyle' should be gracefully handled.
95 The new code will take effect next time you start the shell, or run
97 .zshrc by hand; there is also an option to make them take effect imme‐
98 diately. However, if compinstall has removed definitions, you will
99 need to restart the shell to see the changes.
100 To run compinstall you will need to make sure it is in a directory men‐
102 tioned in your fpath parameter, which should already be the case if zsh
103 was properly configured as long as your startup files do not remove the
104 appropriate directories from fpath. Then it must be autoloaded
105 (`autoload -U compinstall' is recommended). You can abort the instal‐
106 lation any time you are being prompted for information, and your .zshrc
107 will not be altered at all; changes only take place right at the end,
108 where you are specifically asked for confirmation.
109 Use of compinit
111 This section describes the use of compinit to initialize completion for
112 the current session when called directly; if you have run compinstall
113 it will be called automatically from your .zshrc.
114 To initialize the system, the function compinit should be in a direc‐
116 tory mentioned in the fpath parameter, and should be autoloaded
117 (`autoload -U compinit' is recommended), and then run simply as
118 `compinit'. This will define a few utility functions, arrange for all
119 the necessary shell functions to be autoloaded, and will then re-define
120 all widgets that do completion to use the new system. If you use the
121 menu-select widget, which is part of the zsh/complist module, you
122 should make sure that that module is loaded before the call to compinit
123 so that that widget is also re-defined. If completion styles (see
124 below) are set up to perform expansion as well as completion by
125 default, and the TAB key is bound to expand-or-complete, compinit will
126 rebind it to complete-word; this is necessary to use the correct form
127 of expansion.
128 Should you need to use the original completion commands, you can still
130 bind keys to the old widgets by putting a `.' in front of the widget
131 name, e.g. `.expand-or-complete'.
132 To speed up the running of compinit, it can be made to produce a dumped
134 configuration that will be read in on future invocations; this is the
135 default, but can be turned off by calling compinit with the option -D.
136 The dumped file is .zcompdump in the same directory as the startup
137 files (i.e. $ZDOTDIR or $HOME); alternatively, an explicit file name
138 can be given by `compinit -d dumpfile'. The next invocation of
139 compinit will read the dumped file instead of performing a full ini‐
140 tialization.
141 If the number of completion files changes, compinit will recognise this
143 and produce a new dump file. However, if the name of a function or the
144 arguments in the first line of a #compdef function (as described below)
145 change, it is easiest to delete the dump file by hand so that compinit
146 will re-create it the next time it is run. The check performed to see
147 if there are new functions can be omitted by giving the option -C. In
148 this case the dump file will only be created if there isn't one
149 already.
150 The dumping is actually done by another function, compdump, but you
152 will only need to run this yourself if you change the configuration
153 (e.g. using compdef) and then want to dump the new one. The name of
154 the old dumped file will be remembered for this purpose.
155 If the parameter _compdir is set, compinit uses it as a directory where
157 completion functions can be found; this is only necessary if they are
158 not already in the function search path.
159 For security reasons compinit also checks if the completion system
161 would use files not owned by root or by the current user, or files in
162 directories that are world- or group-writable or that are not owned by
163 root or by the current user. If such files or directories are found,
164 compinit will ask if the completion system should really be used. To
165 avoid these tests and make all files found be used without asking, use
166 the option -u, and to make compinit silently ignore all insecure files
167 and directories use the option -i. This security check is skipped
168 entirely when the -C option is given.
169 The security check can be retried at any time by running the function
171 compaudit. This is the same check used by compinit, but when it is
172 executed directly any changes to fpath are made local to the function
173 so they do not persist. The directories to be checked may be passed as
174 arguments; if none are given, compaudit uses fpath and _compdir to find
175 completion system directories, adding missing ones to fpath as neces‐
176 sary. To force a check of exactly the directories currently named in
177 fpath, set _compdir to an empty string before calling compaudit or
178 compinit.
179 The function bashcompinit provides compatibility with bash's program‐
181 mable completion system. When run it will define the functions, comp‐
182 gen and complete which correspond to the bash builtins with the same
183 names. It will then be possible to use completion specifications and
184 functions written for bash.
185 Autoloaded files
187 The convention for autoloaded functions used in completion is that they
188 start with an underscore; as already mentioned, the fpath/FPATH parame‐
189 ter must contain the directory in which they are stored. If zsh was
190 properly installed on your system, then fpath/FPATH automatically con‐
191 tains the required directories for the standard functions.
192 For incomplete installations, if compinit does not find enough files
194 beginning with an underscore (fewer than twenty) in the search path, it
195 will try to find more by adding the directory _compdir to the search
196 path. If that directory has a subdirectory named Base, all subdirecto‐
197 ries will be added to the path. Furthermore, if the subdirectory Base
198 has a subdirectory named Core, compinit will add all subdirectories of
199 the subdirectories to the path: this allows the functions to be in the
200 same format as in the zsh source distribution.
201 When compinit is run, it searches all such files accessible via
203 fpath/FPATH and reads the first line of each of them. This line should
204 contain one of the tags described below. Files whose first line does
205 not start with one of these tags are not considered to be part of the
206 completion system and will not be treated specially.
207 The tags are:
209 #compdef name ... [ -{p|P} pattern ... [ -N name ... ] ]
211 The file will be made autoloadable and the function defined in
212 it will be called when completing names, each of which is either
213 the name of a command whose arguments are to be completed or one
214 of a number of special contexts in the form -context- described
215 below.
216 Each name may also be of the form `cmd=service'. When complet‐
218 ing the command cmd, the function typically behaves as if the
219 command (or special context) service was being completed
220 instead. This provides a way of altering the behaviour of func‐
221 tions that can perform many different completions. It is imple‐
222 mented by setting the parameter $service when calling the func‐
223 tion; the function may choose to interpret this how it wishes,
224 and simpler functions will probably ignore it.
225 If the #compdef line contains one of the options -p or -P, the
227 words following are taken to be patterns. The function will be
228 called when completion is attempted for a command or context
229 that matches one of the patterns. The options -p and -P are
230 used to specify patterns to be tried before or after other com‐
231 pletions respectively. Hence -P may be used to specify default
232 actions.
233 The option -N is used after a list following -p or -P; it speci‐
235 fies that remaining words no longer define patterns. It is pos‐
236 sible to toggle between the three options as many times as nec‐
237 essary.
238 #compdef -k style key-sequence ...
240 This option creates a widget behaving like the builtin widget
241 style and binds it to the given key-sequences, if any. The
242 style must be one of the builtin widgets that perform comple‐
243 tion, namely complete-word, delete-char-or-list, expand-or-com‐
244 plete, expand-or-complete-prefix, list-choices, menu-complete,
245 menu-expand-or-complete, or reverse-menu-complete. If the
246 zsh/complist module is loaded (see zshmodules(1)) the widget
247 menu-select is also available.
248 When one of the key-sequences is typed, the function in the file
250 will be invoked to generate the matches. Note that a key will
251 not be re-bound if it already was (that is, was bound to some‐
252 thing other than undefined-key). The widget created has the
253 same name as the file and can be bound to any other keys using
254 bindkey as usual.
255 #compdef -K widget-name style key-sequence [ name style seq ... ]
257 This is similar to -k except that only one key-sequence argument
258 may be given for each widget-name style pair. However, the
259 entire set of three arguments may be repeated with a different
260 set of arguments. Note in particular that the widget-name must
261 be distinct in each set. If it does not begin with `_' this
262 will be added. The widget-name should not clash with the name
263 of any existing widget: names based on the name of the function
264 are most useful. For example,
265 #compdef -K _foo_complete complete-word "^X^C" \
267 _foo_list list-choices "^X^D"
268 (all on one line) defines a widget _foo_complete for completion,
270 bound to `^X^C', and a widget _foo_list for listing, bound to
271 `^X^D'.
272 #autoload [ options ]
274 Functions with the #autoload tag are marked for autoloading but
275 are not otherwise treated specially. Typically they are to be
276 called from within one of the completion functions. Any options
277 supplied will be passed to the autoload builtin; a typical use
278 is +X to force the function to be loaded immediately. Note that
279 the -U and -z flags are always added implicitly.
280 The # is part of the tag name and no white space is allowed after it.
282 The #compdef tags use the compdef function described below; the main
283 difference is that the name of the function is supplied implicitly.
284 The special contexts for which completion functions can be defined are:
286 -array-value-
288 The right hand side of an array-assignment (`name=(...)')
289 -brace-parameter-
291 The name of a parameter expansion within braces (`${...}')
292 -assign-parameter-
294 The name of a parameter in an assignment, i.e. on the left hand
295 side of an `='
296 -command-
298 A word in command position
299 -condition-
301 A word inside a condition (`[[...]]')
302 -default-
304 Any word for which no other completion is defined
305 -equal-
307 A word beginning with an equals sign
308 -first-
310 This is tried before any other completion function. The func‐
311 tion called may set the _compskip parameter to one of various
312 values: all: no further completion is attempted; a string con‐
313 taining the substring patterns: no pattern completion functions
314 will be called; a string containing default: the function for
315 the `-default-' context will not be called, but functions
316 defined for commands will be.
317 -math- Inside mathematical contexts, such as `((...))'
319 -parameter-
321 The name of a parameter expansion (`$...')
322 -redirect-
324 The word after a redirection operator.
325 -subscript-
327 The contents of a parameter subscript.
328 -tilde-
330 After an initial tilde (`~'), but before the first slash in the
331 word.
332 -value-
334 On the right hand side of an assignment.
335 Default implementations are supplied for each of these contexts. In
337 most cases the context -context- is implemented by a corresponding
338 function _context, for example the context `-tilde-' and the function
339 `_tilde').
340 The contexts -redirect- and -value- allow extra context-specific infor‐
342 mation. (Internally, this is handled by the functions for each context
343 calling the function _dispatch.) The extra information is added sepa‐
344 rated by commas.
345 For the -redirect- context, the extra information is in the form `-re‐
347 direct-,op,command', where op is the redirection operator and command
348 is the name of the command on the line. If there is no command on the
349 line yet, the command field will be empty.
350 For the -value- context, the form is `-value-,name,command', where name
352 is the name of the parameter on the left hand side of the assignment.
353 In the case of elements of an associative array, for example
354 `assoc=(key <TAB>', name is expanded to `name-key'. In certain special
355 contexts, such as completing after `make CFLAGS=', the command part
356 gives the name of the command, here make; otherwise it is empty.
357 It is not necessary to define fully specific completions as the func‐
359 tions provided will try to generate completions by progressively
360 replacing the elements with `-default-'. For example, when completing
361 after `foo=<TAB>', _value will try the names `-value-,foo,' (note the
362 empty command part), `-value-,foo,-default-'
363 and`-value-,-default-,-default-', in that order, until it finds a func‐
364 tion to handle the context.
365 As an example:
367 compdef '_files -g "*.log"' '-redirect-,2>,-default-'
369 completes files matching `*.log' after `2> <TAB>' for any command with
371 no more specific handler defined.
372 Also:
374 compdef _foo -value-,-default-,-default-
376 specifies that _foo provides completions for the values of parameters
378 for which no special function has been defined. This is usually han‐
379 dled by the function _value itself.
380 The same lookup rules are used when looking up styles (as described
382 below); for example
383 zstyle ':completion:*:*:-redirect-,2>,*:*' file-patterns '*.log'
385 is another way to make completion after `2> <TAB>' complete files
387 matching `*.log'.
388 Functions
390 The following function is defined by compinit and may be called
391 directly.
392 compdef [ -ane ] function name ... [ -{p|P} pattern ... [ -N name ...]]
394 compdef -d name ...
395 compdef -k [ -an ] function style key-sequence [ key-sequence ... ]
396 compdef -K [ -an ] function name style key-seq [ name style seq ... ]
397 The first form defines the function to call for completion in
398 the given contexts as described for the #compdef tag above.
399 Alternatively, all the arguments may have the form `cmd=ser‐
401 vice'. Here service should already have been defined by
402 `cmd1=service' lines in #compdef files, as described above. The
403 argument for cmd will be completed in the same way as service.
404 The function argument may alternatively be a string containing
406 almost any shell code. If the string contains an equal sign,
407 the above will take precedence. The option -e may be used to
408 specify the first argument is to be evaluated as shell code even
409 if it contains an equal sign. The string will be executed using
410 the eval builtin command to generate completions. This provides
411 a way of avoiding having to define a new completion function.
412 For example, to complete files ending in `.h' as arguments to
413 the command foo:
414 compdef '_files -g "*.h"' foo
416 The option -n prevents any completions already defined for the
418 command or context from being overwritten.
419 The option -d deletes any completion defined for the command or
421 contexts listed.
422 The names may also contain -p, -P and -N options as described
424 for the #compdef tag. The effect on the argument list is iden‐
425 tical, switching between definitions of patterns tried ini‐
426 tially, patterns tried finally, and normal commands and con‐
427 texts.
428 The parameter $_compskip may be set by any function defined for
430 a pattern context. If it is set to a value containing the sub‐
431 string `patterns' none of the pattern-functions will be called;
432 if it is set to a value containing the substring `all', no other
433 function will be called.
434 The form with -k defines a widget with the same name as the
436 function that will be called for each of the key-sequences; this
437 is like the #compdef -k tag. The function should generate the
438 completions needed and will otherwise behave like the builtin
439 widget whose name is given as the style argument. The widgets
440 usable for this are: complete-word, delete-char-or-list,
441 expand-or-complete, expand-or-complete-prefix, list-choices,
442 menu-complete, menu-expand-or-complete, and reverse-menu-com‐
443 plete, as well as menu-select if the zsh/complist module is
444 loaded. The option -n prevents the key being bound if it is
445 already to bound to something other than undefined-key.
446 The form with -K is similar and defines multiple widgets based
448 on the same function, each of which requires the set of three
449 arguments name, style and key-sequence, where the latter two are
450 as for -k and the first must be a unique widget name beginning
451 with an underscore.
452 Wherever applicable, the -a option makes the function autoload‐
454 able, equivalent to autoload -U function.
455 The function compdef can be used to associate existing completion func‐
457 tions with new commands. For example,
458 compdef _pids foo
460 uses the function _pids to complete process IDs for the command foo.
462 Note also the _gnu_generic function described below, which can be used
464 to complete options for commands that understand the `--help' option.
465
467 This section gives a short overview of how the completion system works,
468 and then more detail on how users can configure how and when matches
469 are generated.
470 Overview
472 When completion is attempted somewhere on the command line the comple‐
473 tion system begins building the context. The context represents every‐
474 thing that the shell knows about the meaning of the command line and
475 the significance of the cursor position. This takes account of a num‐
476 ber of things including the command word (such as `grep' or `zsh') and
477 options to which the current word may be an argument (such as the `-o'
478 option to zsh which takes a shell option as an argument).
479 The context starts out very generic ("we are beginning a completion")
481 and becomes more specific as more is learned ("the current word is in a
482 position that is usually a command name" or "the current word might be
483 a variable name" and so on). Therefore the context will vary during
484 the same call to the completion system.
485 This context information is condensed into a string consisting of mul‐
487 tiple fields separated by colons, referred to simply as `the context'
488 in the remainder of the documentation. Note that a user of the comple‐
489 tion system rarely needs to compose a context string, unless for exam‐
490 ple a new function is being written to perform completion for a new
491 command. What a user may need to do is compose a style pattern, which
492 is matched against a context when needed to look up context-sensitive
493 options that configure the completion system.
494 The next few paragraphs explain how a context is composed within the
496 completion function suite. Following that is discussion of how styles
497 are defined. Styles determine such things as how the matches are gen‐
498 erated, similarly to shell options but with much more control. They
499 are defined with the zstyle builtin command (see zshmodules(1)).
500 The context string always consists of a fixed set of fields, separated
502 by colons and with a leading colon before the first. Fields which are
503 not yet known are left empty, but the surrounding colons appear anyway.
504 The fields are always in the order :completion:function:completer:com‐
505 mand:argument:tag. These have the following meaning:
506 · The literal string completion, saying that this style is used by
508 the completion system. This distinguishes the context from
509 those used by, for example, zle widgets and ZFTP functions.
510 · The function, if completion is called from a named widget rather
513 than through the normal completion system. Typically this is
514 blank, but it is set by special widgets such as predict-on and
515 the various functions in the Widget directory of the distribu‐
516 tion to the name of that function, often in an abbreviated form.
517 · The completer currently active, the name of the function without
520 the leading underscore and with other underscores converted to
521 hyphens. A `completer' is in overall control of how completion
522 is to be performed; `complete' is the simplest, but other com‐
523 pleters exist to perform related tasks such as correction, or to
524 modify the behaviour of a later completer. See the section
525 `Control Functions' below for more information.
526 · The command or a special -context-, just at it appears following
529 the #compdef tag or the compdef function. Completion functions
530 for commands that have sub-commands usually modify this field to
531 contain the name of the command followed by a minus sign and the
532 sub-command. For example, the completion function for the cvs
533 command sets this field to cvs-add when completing arguments to
534 the add subcommand.
535 · The argument; this indicates which command line or option argu‐
538 ment we are completing. For command arguments this generally
539 takes the form argument-n, where n is the number of the argu‐
540 ment, and for arguments to options the form option-opt-n where n
541 is the number of the argument to option opt. However, this is
542 only the case if the command line is parsed with standard
543 UNIX-style options and arguments, so many completions do not set
544 this.
545 · The tag. As described previously, tags are used to discriminate
548 between the types of matches a completion function can generate
549 in a certain context. Any completion function may use any tag
550 name it likes, but a list of the more common ones is given
551 below.
552 The context is gradually put together as the functions are executed,
555 starting with the main entry point, which adds :completion: and the
556 function element if necessary. The completer then adds the completer
557 element. The contextual completion adds the command and argument
558 options. Finally, the tag is added when the types of completion are
559 known. For example, the context name
560 :completion::complete:dvips:option-o-1:files
562 says that normal completion was attempted as the first argument to the
564 option -o of the command dvips:
565 dvips -o ...
567 and the completion function will generate filenames.
569 Usually completion will be tried for all possible tags in an order
571 given by the completion function. However, this can be altered by
572 using the tag-order style. Completion is then restricted to the list
573 of given tags in the given order.
574 The _complete_help bindable command shows all the contexts and tags
576 available for completion at a particular point. This provides an easy
577 way of finding information for tag-order and other styles. It is
578 described in the section `Bindable Commands' below.
579 When looking up styles the completion system uses full context names,
581 including the tag. Looking up the value of a style therefore consists
582 of two things: the context, which is matched to the most specific (best
583 fitting) style pattern, and the name of the style itself, which must be
584 matched exactly. The following examples demonstrate that style pat‐
585 terns may be loosely defined for styles that apply broadly, or as
586 tightly defined as desired for styles that apply in narrower circum‐
587 stances.
588 For example, many completion functions can generate matches in a simple
590 and a verbose form and use the verbose style to decide which form
591 should be used. To make all such functions use the verbose form, put
592 zstyle ':completion:*' verbose yes
594 in a startup file (probably .zshrc). This gives the verbose style the
596 value yes in every context inside the completion system, unless that
597 context has a more specific definition. It is best to avoid giving the
598 context as `*' in case the style has some meaning outside the comple‐
599 tion system.
600 Many such general purpose styles can be configured simply by using the
602 compinstall function.
603 A more specific example of the use of the verbose style is by the com‐
605 pletion for the kill builtin. If the style is set, the builtin lists
606 full job texts and process command lines; otherwise it shows the bare
607 job numbers and PIDs. To turn the style off for this use only:
608 zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*:*' verbose no
610 For even more control, the style can use one of the tags `jobs' or
612 `processes'. To turn off verbose display only for jobs:
613 zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*:jobs' verbose no
615 The -e option to zstyle even allows completion function code to appear
617 as the argument to a style; this requires some understanding of the
618 internals of completion functions (see see zshcompwid(1))). For exam‐
619 ple,
620 zstyle -e ':completion:*' hosts 'reply=($myhosts)'
622 This forces the value of the hosts style to be read from the variable
624 myhosts each time a host name is needed; this is useful if the value of
625 myhosts can change dynamically. For another useful example, see the
626 example in the description of the file-list style below. This form can
627 be slow and should be avoided for commonly examined styles such as menu
628 and list-rows-first.
629 Note that the order in which styles are defined does not matter; the
631 style mechanism uses the most specific possible match for a particular
632 style to determine the set of values. More precisely, strings are pre‐
633 ferred over patterns (for example, `:completion::complete:::foo' is
634 more specific than `:completion::complete:::*'), and longer patterns
635 are preferred over shorter patterns.
636 A good rule of thumb is that any completion style pattern that needs to
638 include more than one wildcard (*) and that does not end in a tag name,
639 should include all six colons (:), possibly surrounding additional
640 wildcards.
641 Style names like those of tags are arbitrary and depend on the comple‐
643 tion function. However, the following two sections list some of the
644 most common tags and styles.
645 Standard Tags
647 Some of the following are only used when looking up particular styles
648 and do not refer to a type of match.
649 accounts
651 used to look up the users-hosts style
652 all-expansions
654 used by the _expand completer when adding the single string con‐
655 taining all possible expansions
656 all-files
658 for the names of all files (as distinct from a particular sub‐
659 set, see the globbed-files tag).
660 arguments
662 for arguments to a command
663 arrays for names of array parameters
665 association-keys
667 for keys of associative arrays; used when completing inside a
668 subscript to a parameter of this type
669 bookmarks
671 when completing bookmarks (e.g. for URLs and the zftp function
672 suite)
673 builtins
675 for names of builtin commands
676 characters
678 for single characters in arguments of commands such as stty.
679 Also used when completing character classes after an opening
680 bracket
681 colormapids
683 for X colormap ids
684 colors for color names
686 commands
688 for names of external commands. Also used by complex commands
689 such as cvs when completing names subcommands.
690 contexts
692 for contexts in arguments to the zstyle builtin command
693 corrections
695 used by the _approximate and _correct completers for possible
696 corrections
697 cursors
699 for cursor names used by X programs
700 default
702 used in some contexts to provide a way of supplying a default
703 when more specific tags are also valid. Note that this tag is
704 used when only the function field of the context name is set
705 descriptions
707 used when looking up the value of the format style to generate
708 descriptions for types of matches
709 devices
711 for names of device special files
712 directories
714 for names of directories -- local-directories is used instead
715 when completing arguments of cd and related builtin commands
716 when the cdpath array is set
717 directory-stack
719 for entries in the directory stack
720 displays
722 for X display names
723 domains
725 for network domains
726 email-plugin
728 for email addresses from the `_email-plugin' backend of
729 _email_addresses
730 expansions
732 used by the _expand completer for individual words (as opposed
733 to the complete set of expansions) resulting from the expansion
734 of a word on the command line
735 extensions
737 for X server extensions
738 file-descriptors
740 for numbers of open file descriptors
741 files the generic file-matching tag used by functions completing file‐
743 names
744 fonts for X font names
746 fstypes
748 for file system types (e.g. for the mount command)
749 functions
751 names of functions -- normally shell functions, although certain
752 commands may understand other kinds of function
753 globbed-files
755 for filenames when the name has been generated by pattern match‐
756 ing
757 groups for names of user groups
759 history-words
761 for words from the history
762 hosts for hostnames
764 indexes
766 for array indexes
767 jobs for jobs (as listed by the `jobs' builtin)
769 interfaces
771 for network interfaces
772 keymaps
774 for names of zsh keymaps
775 keysyms
777 for names of X keysyms
778 libraries
780 for names of system libraries
781 limits for system limits
783 local-directories
785 for names of directories that are subdirectories of the current
786 working directory when completing arguments of cd and related
787 builtin commands (compare path-directories) -- when the cdpath
788 array is unset, directories is used instead
789 manuals
791 for names of manual pages
792 mailboxes
794 for e-mail folders
795 maps for map names (e.g. NIS maps)
797 messages
799 used to look up the format style for messages
800 modifiers
802 for names of X modifiers
803 modules
805 for modules (e.g. zsh modules)
806 my-accounts
808 used to look up the users-hosts style
809 named-directories
811 for named directories (you wouldn't have guessed that, would
812 you?)
813 names for all kinds of names
815 newsgroups
817 for USENET groups
818 nicknames
820 for nicknames of NIS maps
821 options
823 for command options
824 original
826 used by the _approximate, _correct and _expand completers when
827 offering the original string as a match
828 other-accounts
830 used to look up the users-hosts style
831 other-files
833 for the names of any non-directory files. This is used instead
834 of all-files when the list-dirs-first style is in effect.
835 packages
837 for packages (e.g. rpm or installed Debian packages)
838 parameters
840 for names of parameters
841 path-directories
843 for names of directories found by searching the cdpath array
844 when completing arguments of cd and related builtin commands
845 (compare local-directories)
846 paths used to look up the values of the expand, ambiguous and spe‐
848 cial-dirs styles
849 pods for perl pods (documentation files)
851 ports for communication ports
853 prefixes
855 for prefixes (like those of a URL)
856 printers
858 for print queue names
859 processes
861 for process identifiers
862 processes-names
864 used to look up the command style when generating the names of
865 processes for killall
866 sequences
868 for sequences (e.g. mh sequences)
869 sessions
871 for sessions in the zftp function suite
872 signals
874 for signal names
875 strings
877 for strings (e.g. the replacement strings for the cd builtin
878 command)
879 styles for styles used by the zstyle builtin command
881 suffixes
883 for filename extensions
884 tags for tags (e.g. rpm tags)
886 targets
888 for makefile targets
889 time-zones
891 for time zones (e.g. when setting the TZ parameter)
892 types for types of whatever (e.g. address types for the xhost command)
894 urls used to look up the urls and local styles when completing URLs
896 users for usernames
898 values for one of a set of values in certain lists
900 variant
902 used by _pick_variant to look up the command to run when deter‐
903 mining what program is installed for a particular command name.
904 visuals
906 for X visuals
907 warnings
909 used to look up the format style for warnings
910 widgets
912 for zsh widget names
913 windows
915 for IDs of X windows
916 zsh-options
918 for shell options
919 Standard Styles
921 Note that the values of several of these styles represent boolean val‐
922 ues. Any of the strings `true', `on', `yes', and `1' can be used for
923 the value `true' and any of the strings `false', `off', `no', and `0'
924 for the value `false'. The behavior for any other value is undefined
925 except where explicitly mentioned. The default value may be either
926 `true' or `false' if the style is not set.
927 Some of these styles are tested first for every possible tag corre‐
929 sponding to a type of match, and if no style was found, for the default
930 tag. The most notable styles of this type are menu, list-colors and
931 styles controlling completion listing such as list-packed and
932 last-prompt. When tested for the default tag, only the function field
933 of the context will be set so that a style using the default tag will
934 normally be defined along the lines of:
935 zstyle ':completion:*:default' menu ...
937 accept-exact
939 This is tested for the default tag in addition to the tags valid
940 for the current context. If it is set to `true' and any of the
941 trial matches is the same as the string on the command line,
942 this match will immediately be accepted (even if it would other‐
943 wise be considered ambiguous).
944 When completing pathnames (where the tag used is `paths') this
946 style accepts any number of patterns as the value in addition to
947 the boolean values. Pathnames matching one of these patterns
948 will be accepted immediately even if the command line contains
949 some more partially typed pathname components and these match no
950 file under the directory accepted.
951 This style is also used by the _expand completer to decide if
953 words beginning with a tilde or parameter expansion should be
954 expanded. For example, if there are parameters foo and foobar,
955 the string `$foo' will only be expanded if accept-exact is set
956 to `true'; otherwise the completion system will be allowed to
957 complete $foo to $foobar. If the style is set to `continue',
958 _expand will add the expansion as a match and the completion
959 system will also be allowed to continue.
960 accept-exact-dirs
962 This is used by filename completion. Unlike accept-exact it is
963 a boolean. By default, filename completion examines all compo‐
964 nents of a path to see if there are completions of that compo‐
965 nent, even if the component matches an existing directory. For
966 example, when completion after /usr/bin/, the function examines
967 possible completions to /usr.
968 When this style is `true', any prefix of a path that matches an
970 existing directory is accepted without any attempt to complete
971 it further. Hence, in the given example, the path /usr/bin/ is
972 accepted immediately and completion tried in that directory.
973 This style is also useful when completing after directories that
975 magically appear when referenced, such as ZFS .zfs directories
976 or NetApp .snapshot directories. When the style is set the
977 shell does not check for the existence of the directory within
978 the parent directory.
979 If you wish to inhibit this behaviour entirely, set the
981 path-completion style (see below) to `false'.
982 add-space
984 This style is used by the _expand completer. If it is `true'
985 (the default), a space will be inserted after all words result‐
986 ing from the expansion, or a slash in the case of directory
987 names. If the value is `file', the completer will only add a
988 space to names of existing files. Either a boolean `true' or
989 the value `file' may be combined with `subst', in which case the
990 completer will not add a space to words generated from the
991 expansion of a substitution of the form `$(...)' or `${...}'.
992 The _prefix completer uses this style as a simple boolean value
994 to decide if a space should be inserted before the suffix.
995 ambiguous
997 This applies when completing non-final components of filename
998 paths, in other words those with a trailing slash. If it is
999 set, the cursor is left after the first ambiguous component,
1000 even if menu completion is in use. The style is always tested
1001 with the paths tag.
1002 assign-list
1004 When completing after an equals sign that is being treated as an
1005 assignment, the completion system normally completes only one
1006 filename. In some cases the value may be a list of filenames
1007 separated by colons, as with PATH and similar parameters. This
1008 style can be set to a list of patterns matching the names of
1009 such parameters.
1010 The default is to complete lists when the word on the line
1012 already contains a colon.
1013 auto-description
1015 If set, this style's value will be used as the description for
1016 options that are not described by the completion functions, but
1017 that have exactly one argument. The sequence `%d' in the value
1018 will be replaced by the description for this argument. Depend‐
1019 ing on personal preferences, it may be useful to set this style
1020 to something like `specify: %d'. Note that this may not work
1021 for some commands.
1022 avoid-completer
1024 This is used by the _all_matches completer to decide if the
1025 string consisting of all matches should be added to the list
1026 currently being generated. Its value is a list of names of com‐
1027 pleters. If any of these is the name of the completer that gen‐
1028 erated the matches in this completion, the string will not be
1029 added.
1030 The default value for this style is `_expand _old_list _correct
1032 _approximate', i.e. it contains the completers for which a
1033 string with all matches will almost never be wanted.
1034 cache-path
1036 This style defines the path where any cache files containing
1037 dumped completion data are stored. It defaults to `$ZDOT‐
1038 DIR/.zcompcache', or `$HOME/.zcompcache' if $ZDOTDIR is not
1039 defined. The completion cache will not be used unless the
1040 use-cache style is set.
1041 cache-policy
1043 This style defines the function that will be used to determine
1044 whether a cache needs rebuilding. See the section on the
1045 _cache_invalid function below.
1046 call-command
1048 This style is used in the function for commands such as make and
1049 ant where calling the command directly to generate matches suf‐
1050 fers problems such as being slow or, as in the case of make can
1051 potentially cause actions in the makefile to be executed. If it
1052 is set to `true' the command is called to generate matches. The
1053 default value of this style is `false'.
1054 command
1056 In many places, completion functions need to call external com‐
1057 mands to generate the list of completions. This style can be
1058 used to override the command that is called in some such cases.
1059 The elements of the value are joined with spaces to form a com‐
1060 mand line to execute. The value can also start with a hyphen,
1061 in which case the usual command will be added to the end; this
1062 is most useful for putting `builtin' or `command' in front to
1063 make sure the appropriate version of a command is called, for
1064 example to avoid calling a shell function with the same name as
1065 an external command.
1066 As an example, the completion function for process IDs uses this
1068 style with the processes tag to generate the IDs to complete and
1069 the list of processes to display (if the verbose style is
1070 `true'). The list produced by the command should look like the
1071 output of the ps command. The first line is not displayed, but
1072 is searched for the string `PID' (or `pid') to find the position
1073 of the process IDs in the following lines. If the line does not
1074 contain `PID', the first numbers in each of the other lines are
1075 taken as the process IDs to complete.
1076 Note that the completion function generally has to call the
1078 specified command for each attempt to generate the completion
1079 list. Hence care should be taken to specify only commands that
1080 take a short time to run, and in particular to avoid any that
1081 may never terminate.
1082 command-path
1084 This is a list of directories to search for commands to com‐
1085 plete. The default for this style is the value of the special
1086 parameter path.
1087 commands
1089 This is used by the function completing sub-commands for the
1090 system initialisation scripts (residing in /etc/init.d or some‐
1091 where not too far away from that). Its values give the default
1092 commands to complete for those commands for which the completion
1093 function isn't able to find them out automatically. The default
1094 for this style are the two strings `start' and `stop'.
1095 complete
1097 This is used by the _expand_alias function when invoked as a
1098 bindable command. If set to `true' and the word on the command
1099 line is not the name of an alias, matching alias names will be
1100 completed.
1101 complete-options
1103 This is used by the completer for cd, chdir and pushd. For
1104 these commands a - is used to introduce a directory stack entry
1105 and completion of these is far more common than completing
1106 options. Hence unless the value of this style is `true' options
1107 will not be completed, even after an initial -. If it is
1108 `true', options will be completed after an initial - unless
1109 there is a preceding -- on the command line.
1110 completer
1112 The strings given as the value of this style provide the names
1113 of the completer functions to use. The available completer func‐
1114 tions are described in the section `Control Functions' below.
1115 Each string may be either the name of a completer function or a
1117 string of the form `function:name'. In the first case the com‐
1118 pleter field of the context will contain the name of the com‐
1119 pleter without the leading underscore and with all other under‐
1120 scores replaced by hyphens. In the second case the function is
1121 the name of the completer to call, but the context will contain
1122 the user-defined name in the completer field of the context. If
1123 the name starts with a hyphen, the string for the context will
1124 be build from the name of the completer function as in the first
1125 case with the name appended to it. For example:
1126 zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _complete:-foo
1128 Here, completion will call the _complete completer twice, once
1130 using `complete' and once using `complete-foo' in the completer
1131 field of the context. Normally, using the same completer more
1132 than once only makes sense when used with the `functions:name'
1133 form, because otherwise the context name will be the same in all
1134 calls to the completer; possible exceptions to this rule are the
1135 _ignored and _prefix completers.
1136 The default value for this style is `_complete _ignored': only
1138 completion will be done, first using the ignored-patterns style
1139 and the $fignore array and then without ignoring matches.
1140 condition
1142 This style is used by the _list completer function to decide if
1143 insertion of matches should be delayed unconditionally. The
1144 default is `true'.
1145 delimiters
1147 This style is used when adding a delimiter for use with history
1148 modifiers or glob qualifiers that have delimited arguments. It
1149 is an array of preferred delimiters to add. Non-special charac‐
1150 ters are preferred as the completion system may otherwise become
1151 confused. The default list is :, +, /, -, %. The list may be
1152 empty to force a delimiter to be typed.
1153 disabled
1155 If this is set to `true', the _expand_alias completer and bind‐
1156 able command will try to expand disabled aliases, too. The
1157 default is `false'.
1158 domains
1160 A list of names of network domains for completion. If this is
1161 not set, domain names will be taken from the file
1162 /etc/resolv.conf.
1163 environ
1165 The environ style is used when completing for `sudo'. It is set
1166 to an array of `VAR=value' assignments to be exported into the
1167 local environment before the completion for the target command
1168 is invoked.
1169 zstyle ':completion:*:sudo::' environ \
1170 PATH="/sbin:/usr/sbin:$PATH" HOME="/root"
1171 expand This style is used when completing strings consisting of multi‐
1173 ple parts, such as path names.
1174 If one of its values is the string `prefix', the partially typed
1176 word from the line will be expanded as far as possible even if
1177 trailing parts cannot be completed.
1178 If one of its values is the string `suffix', matching names for
1180 components after the first ambiguous one will also be added.
1181 This means that the resulting string is the longest unambiguous
1182 string possible. However, menu completion can be used to cycle
1183 through all matches.
1184 fake This style may be set for any completion context. It specifies
1186 additional strings that will always be completed in that con‐
1187 text. The form of each string is `value:description'; the colon
1188 and description may be omitted, but any literal colons in value
1189 must be quoted with a backslash. Any description provided is
1190 shown alongside the value in completion listings.
1191 It is important to use a sufficiently restrictive context when
1193 specifying fake strings. Note that the styles fake-files and
1194 fake-parameters provide additional features when completing
1195 files or parameters.
1196 fake-always
1198 This works identically to the fake style except that the
1199 ignored-patterns style is not applied to it. This makes it pos‐
1200 sible to override a set of matches completely by setting the
1201 ignored patterns to `*'.
1202 The following shows a way of supplementing any tag with arbi‐
1204 trary data, but having it behave for display purposes like a
1205 separate tag. In this example we use the features of the
1206 tag-order style to divide the named-directories tag into two
1207 when performing completion with the standard completer complete
1208 for arguments of cd. The tag named-directories-normal behaves
1209 as normal, but the tag named-directories-mine contains a fixed
1210 set of directories. This has the effect of adding the match
1211 group `extra directories' with the given completions.
1212 zstyle ':completion::complete:cd:*' tag-order \
1214 'named-directories:-mine:extra\ directories
1215 named-directories:-normal:named\ directories *'
1216 zstyle ':completion::complete:cd:*:named-directories-mine' \
1217 fake-always mydir1 mydir2
1218 zstyle ':completion::complete:cd:*:named-directories-mine' \
1219 ignored-patterns '*'
1220 fake-files
1222 This style is used when completing files and looked up without a
1223 tag. Its values are of the form `dir:names...'. This will add
1224 the names (strings separated by spaces) as possible matches when
1225 completing in the directory dir, even if no such files really
1226 exist. The dir may be a pattern; pattern characters or colons
1227 in dir should be quoted with a backslash to be treated liter‐
1228 ally.
1229 This can be useful on systems that support special file systems
1231 whose top-level pathnames can not be listed or generated with
1232 glob patterns (but see accept-exact-dirs for a more general way
1233 of dealing with this problem). It can also be used for directo‐
1234 ries for which one does not have read permission.
1235 The pattern form can be used to add a certain `magic' entry to
1237 all directories on a particular file system.
1238 fake-parameters
1240 This is used by the completion function for parameter names.
1241 Its values are names of parameters that might not yet be set but
1242 should be completed nonetheless. Each name may also be followed
1243 by a colon and a string specifying the type of the parameter
1244 (like `scalar', `array' or `integer'). If the type is given,
1245 the name will only be completed if parameters of that type are
1246 required in the particular context. Names for which no type is
1247 specified will always be completed.
1248 file-list
1250 This style controls whether files completed using the standard
1251 builtin mechanism are to be listed with a long list similar to
1252 ls -l. Note that this feature uses the shell module zsh/stat
1253 for file information; this loads the builtin stat which will
1254 replace any external stat executable. To avoid this the follow‐
1255 ing code can be included in an initialization file:
1256 zmodload -i zsh/stat
1258 disable stat
1259 The style may either be set to a `true' value (or `all'), or one
1261 of the values `insert' or `list', indicating that files are to
1262 be listed in long format in all circumstances, or when attempt‐
1263 ing to insert a file name, or when listing file names without
1264 attempting to insert one.
1265 More generally, the value may be an array of any of the above
1267 values, optionally followed by =num. If num is present it gives
1268 the maximum number of matches for which long listing style will
1269 be used. For example,
1270 zstyle ':completion:*' file-list list=20 insert=10
1272 specifies that long format will be used when listing up to 20
1274 files or inserting a file with up to 10 matches (assuming a
1275 listing is to be shown at all, for example on an ambiguous com‐
1276 pletion), else short format will be used.
1277 zstyle -e ':completion:*' file-list \
1279 '(( ${+NUMERIC} )) && reply=(true)'
1280 specifies that long format will be used any time a numeric argu‐
1282 ment is supplied, else short format.
1283 file-patterns
1285 This is used by the standard function for completing filenames,
1286 _files. If the style is unset up to three tags are offered,
1287 `globbed-files',`directories' and `all-files', depending on the
1288 types of files expected by the caller of _files. The first two
1289 (`globbed-files' and `directories') are normally offered
1290 together to make it easier to complete files in sub-directories.
1291 The file-patterns style provides alternatives to the default
1293 tags, which are not used. Its value consists of elements of the
1294 form `pattern:tag'; each string may contain any number of such
1295 specifications separated by spaces.
1296 The pattern is a pattern that is to be used to generate file‐
1298 names. Any occurrence of the sequence `%p' is replaced by any
1299 pattern(s) passed by the function calling _files. Colons in the
1300 pattern must be preceded by a backslash to make them distin‐
1301 guishable from the colon before the tag. If more than one pat‐
1302 tern is needed, the patterns can be given inside braces, sepa‐
1303 rated by commas.
1304 The tags of all strings in the value will be offered by _files
1306 and used when looking up other styles. Any tags in the same
1307 word will be offered at the same time and before later words.
1308 If no `:tag' is given the `files' tag will be used.
1309 The tag may also be followed by an optional second colon and a
1311 description, which will be used for the `%d' in the value of the
1312 format style (if that is set) instead of the default description
1313 supplied by the completion function. If the description given
1314 here contains itself a `%d', that is replaced with the descrip‐
1315 tion supplied by the completion function.
1316 For example, to make the rm command first complete only names of
1318 object files and then the names of all files if there is no
1319 matching object file:
1320 zstyle ':completion:*:*:rm:*:*' file-patterns \
1322 '*.o:object-files' '%p:all-files'
1323 To alter the default behaviour of file completion -- offer files
1325 matching a pattern and directories on the first attempt, then
1326 all files -- to offer only matching files on the first attempt,
1327 then directories, and finally all files:
1328 zstyle ':completion:*' file-patterns \
1330 '%p:globbed-files' '*(-/):directories' '*:all-files'
1331 This works even where there is no special pattern: _files
1333 matches all files using the pattern `*' at the first step and
1334 stops when it sees this pattern. Note also it will never try a
1335 pattern more than once for a single completion attempt.
1336 During the execution of completion functions, the EXTENDED_GLOB
1338 option is in effect, so the characters `#', `~' and `^' have
1339 special meanings in the patterns.
1340 file-sort
1342 The standard filename completion function uses this style with‐
1343 out a tag to determine in which order the names should be
1344 listed; menu completion will cycle through them in the same
1345 order. The possible values are: `size' to sort by the size of
1346 the file; `links' to sort by the number of links to the file;
1347 `modification' (or `time' or `date') to sort by the last modifi‐
1348 cation time; `access' to sort by the last access time; and
1349 `inode' (or `change') to sort by the last inode change time. If
1350 the style is set to any other value, or is unset, files will be
1351 sorted alphabetically by name. If the value contains the string
1352 `reverse', sorting is done in the opposite order. If the value
1353 contains the string `follow', timestamps are associated with the
1354 targets of symbolic links; the default is to use the timestamps
1355 of the links themselves.
1356 filter The ldap plugin of email address completion (see
1358 _email_addresses) uses this style to specify the attributes to
1359 match against when filtering entries. So for example, if the
1360 style is set to `sn', matching is done against surnames. Stan‐
1361 dard LDAP filtering is used so normal completion matching is
1362 bypassed. If this style is not set, the LDAP plugin is skipped.
1363 You may also need to set the command style to specify how to
1364 connect to your LDAP server.
1365 force-list
1367 This forces a list of completions to be shown at any point where
1368 listing is done, even in cases where the list would usually be
1369 suppressed. For example, normally the list is only shown if
1370 there are at least two different matches. By setting this style
1371 to `always', the list will always be shown, even if there is
1372 only a single match that will immediately be accepted. The
1373 style may also be set to a number. In this case the list will
1374 be shown if there are at least that many matches, even if they
1375 would all insert the same string.
1376 This style is tested for the default tag as well as for each tag
1378 valid for the current completion. Hence the listing can be
1379 forced only for certain types of match.
1380 format If this is set for the descriptions tag, its value is used as a
1382 string to display above matches in completion lists. The
1383 sequence `%d' in this string will be replaced with a short
1384 description of what these matches are. This string may also
1385 contain the following sequences to specify output attributes as
1386 described in the section EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in zsh‐
1387 misc(1): `%B', `%S', `%U', `%F', `%K' and their lower case coun‐
1388 terparts, as well as `%{...%}'. `%F', `%K' and `%{...%}' take
1389 arguments in the same form as prompt expansion. Note that the
1390 sequence `%G' is not available; an argument to `%{' should be
1391 used instead.
1392 The style is tested with each tag valid for the current comple‐
1394 tion before it is tested for the descriptions tag. Hence dif‐
1395 ferent format strings can be defined for different types of
1396 match.
1397 Note also that some completer functions define additional
1399 `%'-sequences. These are described for the completer functions
1400 that make use of them.
1401 Some completion functions display messages that may be cus‐
1403 tomised by setting this style for the messages tag. Here, the
1404 `%d' is replaced with a message given by the completion func‐
1405 tion.
1406 Finally, the format string is looked up with the warnings tag,
1408 for use when no matches could be generated at all. In this case
1409 the `%d' is replaced with the descriptions for the matches that
1410 were expected separated by spaces. The sequence `%D' is
1411 replaced with the same descriptions separated by newlines.
1412 It is possible to use printf-style field width specifiers with
1414 `%d' and similar escape sequences. This is handled by the zfor‐
1415 mat builtin command from the zsh/zutil module, see zshmod‐
1416 ules(1).
1417 glob This is used by the _expand completer. If it is set to `true'
1419 (the default), globbing will be attempted on the words resulting
1420 from a previous substitution (see the substitute style) or else
1421 the original string from the line.
1422 global If this is set to `true' (the default), the _expand_alias com‐
1424 pleter and bindable command will try to expand global aliases.
1425 group-name
1427 The completion system can group different types of matches,
1428 which appear in separate lists. This style can be used to give
1429 the names of groups for particular tags. For example, in com‐
1430 mand position the completion system generates names of builtin
1431 and external commands, names of aliases, shell functions and
1432 parameters and reserved words as possible completions. To have
1433 the external commands and shell functions listed separately:
1434 zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:commands' \
1436 group-name commands
1437 zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:functions' \
1438 group-name functions
1439 As a consequence, any match with the same tag will be displayed
1441 in the same group.
1442 If the name given is the empty string the name of the tag for
1444 the matches will be used as the name of the group. So, to have
1445 all different types of matches displayed separately, one can
1446 just set:
1447 zstyle ':completion:*' group-name ''
1449 All matches for which no group name is defined will be put in a
1451 group named -default-.
1452 group-order
1454 This style is additional to the group-name style to specify the
1455 order for display of the groups defined by that style (compare
1456 tag-order, which determines which completions appear at all).
1457 The groups named are shown in the given order; any other groups
1458 are shown in the order defined by the completion function.
1459 For example, to have names of builtin commands, shell functions
1461 and external commands appear in that order when completing in
1462 command position:
1463 zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:*' group-order \
1465 builtins functions commands
1466 groups A list of names of UNIX groups. If this is not set, group names
1468 are taken from the YP database or the file `/etc/group'.
1469 hidden If this is set to `true', matches for the given context will not
1471 be listed, although any description for the matches set with the
1472 format style will be shown. If it is set to `all', not even the
1473 description will be displayed.
1474 Note that the matches will still be completed; they are just not
1476 shown in the list. To avoid having matches considered as possi‐
1477 ble completions at all, the tag-order style can be modified as
1478 described below.
1479 hosts A list of names of hosts that should be completed. If this is
1481 not set, hostnames are taken from the file `/etc/hosts'.
1482 hosts-ports
1484 This style is used by commands that need or accept hostnames and
1485 network ports. The strings in the value should be of the form
1486 `host:port'. Valid ports are determined by the presence of
1487 hostnames; multiple ports for the same host may appear.
1488 ignore-line
1490 This is tested for each tag valid for the current completion.
1491 If it is set to `true', none of the words that are already on
1492 the line will be considered as possible completions. If it is
1493 set to `current', the word the cursor is on will not be consid‐
1494 ered as a possible completion. The value `current-shown' is
1495 similar but only applies if the list of completions is currently
1496 shown on the screen. Finally, if the style is set to `other',
1497 all words on the line except for the current one will be
1498 excluded from the possible completions.
1499 The values `current' and `current-shown' are a bit like the
1501 opposite of the accept-exact style: only strings with missing
1502 characters will be completed.
1503 Note that you almost certainly don't want to set this to `true'
1505 or `other' for a general context such as `:completion:*'. This
1506 is because it would disallow completion of, for example, options
1507 multiple times even if the command in question accepts the
1508 option more than once.
1509 ignore-parents
1511 The style is tested without a tag by the function completing
1512 pathnames in order to determine whether to ignore the names of
1513 directories already mentioned in the current word, or the name
1514 of the current working directory. The value must include one or
1515 both of the following strings:
1516 parent The name of any directory whose path is already contained
1518 in the word on the line is ignored. For example, when
1519 completing after foo/../, the directory foo will not be
1520 considered a valid completion.
1521 pwd The name of the current working directory will not be
1523 completed; hence, for example, completion after ../ will
1524 not use the name of the current directory.
1525 In addition, the value may include one or both of:
1527 .. Ignore the specified directories only when the word on
1529 the line contains the substring `../'.
1530 directory
1532 Ignore the specified directories only when names of
1533 directories are completed, not when completing names of
1534 files.
1535 Excluded values act in a similar fashion to values of the
1537 ignored-patterns style, so they can be restored to consideration
1538 by the _ignored completer.
1539 extra-verbose
1541 If set, the completion listing is more verbose at the cost of a
1542 probable decrease in completion speed. Completion performance
1543 will suffer if this style is set to `true'.
1544 ignored-patterns
1546 A list of patterns; any trial completion matching one of the
1547 patterns will be excluded from consideration. The _ignored com‐
1548 pleter can appear in the list of completers to restore the
1549 ignored matches. This is a more configurable version of the
1550 shell parameter $fignore.
1551 Note that the EXTENDED_GLOB option is set during the execution
1553 of completion functions, so the characters `#', `~' and `^' have
1554 special meanings in the patterns.
1555 insert This style is used by the _all_matches completer to decide
1557 whether to insert the list of all matches unconditionally
1558 instead of adding the list as another match.
1559 insert-ids
1561 When completing process IDs, for example as arguments to the
1562 kill and wait builtins the name of a command may be converted to
1563 the appropriate process ID. A problem arises when the process
1564 name typed is not unique. By default (or if this style is set
1565 explicitly to `menu') the name will be converted immediately to
1566 a set of possible IDs, and menu completion will be started to
1567 cycle through them.
1568 If the value of the style is `single', the shell will wait until
1570 the user has typed enough to make the command unique before con‐
1571 verting the name to an ID; attempts at completion will be unsuc‐
1572 cessful until that point. If the value is any other string,
1573 menu completion will be started when the string typed by the
1574 user is longer than the common prefix to the corresponding IDs.
1575 insert-tab
1577 If this is set to `true', the completion system will insert a
1578 TAB character (assuming that was used to start completion)
1579 instead of performing completion when there is no non-blank
1580 character to the left of the cursor. If it is set to `false',
1581 completion will be done even there.
1582 The value may also contain the substrings `pending' or `pend‐
1584 ing=val'. In this case, the typed character will be inserted
1585 instead of starting completion when there is unprocessed input
1586 pending. If a val is given, completion will not be done if
1587 there are at least that many characters of unprocessed input.
1588 This is often useful when pasting characters into a terminal.
1589 Note however, that it relies on the $PENDING special parameter
1590 from the zsh/zle module being set properly which is not guaran‐
1591 teed on all platforms.
1592 The default value of this style is `true' except for completion
1594 within vared builtin command where it is `false'.
1595 insert-unambiguous
1597 This is used by the _match and _approximate completers. These
1598 completers are often used with menu completion since the word
1599 typed may bear little resemblance to the final completion. How‐
1600 ever, if this style is `true', the completer will start menu
1601 completion only if it could find no unambiguous initial string
1602 at least as long as the original string typed by the user.
1603 In the case of the _approximate completer, the completer field
1605 in the context will already have been set to one of correct-num
1606 or approximate-num, where num is the number of errors that were
1607 accepted.
1608 In the case of the _match completer, the style may also be set
1610 to the string `pattern'. Then the pattern on the line is left
1611 unchanged if it does not match unambiguously.
1612 gain-privileges
1614 If set to true, this style enables the use of commands like sudo
1615 or doas to gain extra privileges when retrieving information for
1616 completion. This is only done when a command such as sudo
1617 appears on the command-line. To force the use of, e.g. sudo or
1618 to override any prefix that might be added due to gain-privi‐
1619 leges, the command style can be used with a value that begins
1620 with a hyphen.
1621 keep-prefix
1623 This style is used by the _expand completer. If it is `true',
1624 the completer will try to keep a prefix containing a tilde or
1625 parameter expansion. Hence, for example, the string `~/f*'
1626 would be expanded to `~/foo' instead of `/home/user/foo'. If
1627 the style is set to `changed' (the default), the prefix will
1628 only be left unchanged if there were other changes between the
1629 expanded words and the original word from the command line. Any
1630 other value forces the prefix to be expanded unconditionally.
1631 The behaviour of _expand when this style is `true' is to cause
1633 _expand to give up when a single expansion with the restored
1634 prefix is the same as the original; hence any remaining com‐
1635 pleters may be called.
1636 last-prompt
1638 This is a more flexible form of the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option.
1639 If it is `true', the completion system will try to return the
1640 cursor to the previous command line after displaying a comple‐
1641 tion list. It is tested for all tags valid for the current com‐
1642 pletion, then the default tag. The cursor will be moved back to
1643 the previous line if this style is `true' for all types of
1644 match. Note that unlike the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option this is
1645 independent of the numeric argument.
1646 known-hosts-files
1648 This style should contain a list of files to search for host
1649 names and (if the use-ip style is set) IP addresses in a format
1650 compatible with ssh known_hosts files. If it is not set, the
1651 files /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts and ~/.ssh/known_hosts are used.
1652 list This style is used by the _history_complete_word bindable com‐
1654 mand. If it is set to `true' it has no effect. If it is set to
1655 `false' matches will not be listed. This overrides the setting
1656 of the options controlling listing behaviour, in particular
1657 AUTO_LIST. The context always starts with `:completion:his‐
1658 tory-words'.
1659 list-colors
1661 If the zsh/complist module is loaded, this style can be used to
1662 set color specifications. This mechanism replaces the use of
1663 the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters described in the sec‐
1664 tion `The zsh/complist Module' in zshmodules(1), but the syntax
1665 is the same.
1666 If this style is set for the default tag, the strings in the
1668 value are taken as specifications that are to be used every‐
1669 where. If it is set for other tags, the specifications are used
1670 only for matches of the type described by the tag. For this to
1671 work best, the group-name style must be set to an empty string.
1672 In addition to setting styles for specific tags, it is also pos‐
1674 sible to use group names specified explicitly by the group-name
1675 tag together with the `(group)' syntax allowed by the ZLS_COLORS
1676 and ZLS_COLOURS parameters and simply using the default tag.
1677 It is possible to use any color specifications already set up
1679 for the GNU version of the ls command:
1680 zstyle ':completion:*:default' list-colors \
1682 ${(s.:.)LS_COLORS}
1683 The default colors are the same as for the GNU ls command and
1685 can be obtained by setting the style to an empty string (i.e.
1686 '').
1687 list-dirs-first
1689 This is used by file completion. If set, directories to be com‐
1690 pleted are listed separately from and before completion for
1691 other files, regardless of tag ordering. In addition, the tag
1692 other-files is used in place of all-files for the remaining
1693 files, to indicate that no directories are presented with that
1694 tag.
1695 list-grouped
1697 If this style is `true' (the default), the completion system
1698 will try to make certain completion listings more compact by
1699 grouping matches. For example, options for commands that have
1700 the same description (shown when the verbose style is set to
1701 `true') will appear as a single entry. However, menu selection
1702 can be used to cycle through all the matches.
1703 list-packed
1705 This is tested for each tag valid in the current context as well
1706 as the default tag. If it is set to `true', the corresponding
1707 matches appear in listings as if the LIST_PACKED option were
1708 set. If it is set to `false', they are listed normally.
1709 list-prompt
1711 If this style is set for the default tag, completion lists that
1712 don't fit on the screen can be scrolled (see the description of
1713 the zsh/complist module in zshmodules(1)). The value, if not
1714 the empty string, will be displayed after every screenful and
1715 the shell will prompt for a key press; if the style is set to
1716 the empty string, a default prompt will be used.
1717 The value may contain the escape sequences: `%l' or `%L', which
1719 will be replaced by the number of the last line displayed and
1720 the total number of lines; `%m' or `%M', the number of the last
1721 match shown and the total number of matches; and `%p' and `%P',
1722 `Top' when at the beginning of the list, `Bottom' when at the
1723 end and the position shown as a percentage of the total length
1724 otherwise. In each case the form with the uppercase letter will
1725 be replaced by a string of fixed width, padded to the right
1726 with spaces, while the lowercase form will be replaced by a
1727 variable width string. As in other prompt strings, the escape
1728 sequences `%S', `%s', `%B', `%b', `%U', `%u' for entering and
1729 leaving the display modes standout, bold and underline, and
1730 `%F', `%f', `%K', `%k' for changing the foreground background
1731 colour, are also available, as is the form `%{...%}' for enclos‐
1732 ing escape sequences which display with zero (or, with a numeric
1733 argument, some other) width.
1734 After deleting this prompt the variable LISTPROMPT should be
1736 unset for the removal to take effect.
1737 list-rows-first
1739 This style is tested in the same way as the list-packed style
1740 and determines whether matches are to be listed in a rows-first
1741 fashion as if the LIST_ROWS_FIRST option were set.
1742 list-suffixes
1744 This style is used by the function that completes filenames. If
1745 it is `true', and completion is attempted on a string containing
1746 multiple partially typed pathname components, all ambiguous com‐
1747 ponents will be shown. Otherwise, completion stops at the first
1748 ambiguous component.
1749 list-separator
1751 The value of this style is used in completion listing to sepa‐
1752 rate the string to complete from a description when possible
1753 (e.g. when completing options). It defaults to `--' (two
1754 hyphens).
1755 local This is for use with functions that complete URLs for which the
1757 corresponding files are available directly from the file system.
1758 Its value should consist of three strings: a hostname, the path
1759 to the default web pages for the server, and the directory name
1760 used by a user placing web pages within their home area.
1761 For example:
1763 zstyle ':completion:*' local toast \
1765 /var/http/public/toast public_html
1766 Completion after `http://toast/stuff/' will look for files in
1768 the directory /var/http/public/toast/stuff, while completion
1769 after `http://toast/~yousir/' will look for files in the direc‐
1770 tory ~yousir/public_html.
1771 mail-directory
1773 If set, zsh will assume that mailbox files can be found in the
1774 directory specified. It defaults to `~/Mail'.
1775 match-original
1777 This is used by the _match completer. If it is set to only,
1778 _match will try to generate matches without inserting a `*' at
1779 the cursor position. If set to any other non-empty value, it
1780 will first try to generate matches without inserting the `*' and
1781 if that yields no matches, it will try again with the `*'
1782 inserted. If it is unset or set to the empty string, matching
1783 will only be performed with the `*' inserted.
1784 matcher
1786 This style is tested separately for each tag valid in the cur‐
1787 rent context. Its value is placed before any match specifica‐
1788 tions given by the matcher-list style so can override them via
1789 the use of an x: specification. The value should be in the form
1790 described in the section `Completion Matching Control' in zsh‐
1791 compwid(1). For examples of this, see the description of the
1792 tag-order style.
1793 matcher-list
1795 This style can be set to a list of match specifications that are
1796 to be applied everywhere. Match specifications are described in
1797 the section `Completion Matching Control' in zshcompwid(1). The
1798 completion system will try them one after another for each com‐
1799 pleter selected. For example, to try first simple completion
1800 and, if that generates no matches, case-insensitive completion:
1801 zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
1803 By default each specification replaces the previous one; how‐
1805 ever, if a specification is prefixed with +, it is added to the
1806 existing list. Hence it is possible to create increasingly gen‐
1807 eral specifications without repetition:
1808 zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list \
1810 '' '+m:{a-z}={A-Z}' '+m:{A-Z}={a-z}'
1811 It is possible to create match specifications valid for particu‐
1813 lar completers by using the third field of the context. This
1814 applies only to completers that override the global
1815 matcher-list, which as of this writing includes only _prefix and
1816 _ignored. For example, to use the completers _complete and
1817 _prefix but allow case-insensitive completion only with _com‐
1818 plete:
1819 zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _prefix
1821 zstyle ':completion:*:complete:*:*:*' matcher-list \
1822 '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
1823 User-defined names, as explained for the completer style, are
1825 available. This makes it possible to try the same completer
1826 more than once with different match specifications each time.
1827 For example, to try normal completion without a match specifica‐
1828 tion, then normal completion with case-insensitive matching,
1829 then correction, and finally partial-word completion:
1830 zstyle ':completion:*' completer \
1832 _complete _correct _complete:foo
1833 zstyle ':completion:*:complete:*:*:*' matcher-list \
1834 '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
1835 zstyle ':completion:*:foo:*:*:*' matcher-list \
1836 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z} r:|[-_./]=* r:|=*'
1837 If the style is unset in any context no match specification is
1839 applied. Note also that some completers such as _correct and
1840 _approximate do not use the match specifications at all, though
1841 these completers will only ever be called once even if the
1842 matcher-list contains more than one element.
1843 Where multiple specifications are useful, note that the entire
1845 completion is done for each element of matcher-list, which can
1846 quickly reduce the shell's performance. As a rough rule of
1847 thumb, one to three strings will give acceptable performance.
1848 On the other hand, putting multiple space-separated values into
1849 the same string does not have an appreciable impact on perfor‐
1850 mance.
1851 If there is no current matcher or it is empty, and the option
1853 NO_CASE_GLOB is in effect, the matching for files is performed
1854 case-insensitively in any case. However, any matcher must
1855 explicitly specify case-insensitive matching if that is
1856 required.
1857 max-errors
1859 This is used by the _approximate and _correct completer func‐
1860 tions to determine the maximum number of errors to allow. The
1861 completer will try to generate completions by first allowing one
1862 error, then two errors, and so on, until either a match or
1863 matches were found or the maximum number of errors given by this
1864 style has been reached.
1865 If the value for this style contains the string `numeric', the
1867 completer function will take any numeric argument as the maximum
1868 number of errors allowed. For example, with
1869 zstyle ':completion:*:approximate:::' max-errors 2 numeric
1871 two errors are allowed if no numeric argument is given, but with
1873 a numeric argument of six (as in `ESC-6 TAB'), up to six errors
1874 are accepted. Hence with a value of `0 numeric', no correcting
1875 completion will be attempted unless a numeric argument is given.
1876 If the value contains the string `not-numeric', the completer
1878 will not try to generate corrected completions when given a
1879 numeric argument, so in this case the number given should be
1880 greater than zero. For example, `2 not-numeric' specifies that
1881 correcting completion with two errors will usually be performed,
1882 but if a numeric argument is given, correcting completion will
1883 not be performed.
1884 The default value for this style is `2 numeric'.
1886 max-matches-width
1888 This style is used to determine the trade off between the width
1889 of the display used for matches and the width used for their
1890 descriptions when the verbose style is in effect. The value
1891 gives the number of display columns to reserve for the matches.
1892 The default is half the width of the screen.
1893 This has the most impact when several matches have the same
1895 description and so will be grouped together. Increasing the
1896 style will allow more matches to be grouped together; decreasing
1897 it will allow more of the description to be visible.
1898 menu If this is `true' in the context of any of the tags defined for
1900 the current completion menu completion will be used. The value
1901 for a specific tag will take precedence over that for the
1902 `default' tag.
1903 If none of the values found in this way is `true' but at least
1905 one is set to `auto', the shell behaves as if the AUTO_MENU
1906 option is set.
1907 If one of the values is explicitly set to `false', menu comple‐
1909 tion will be explicitly turned off, overriding the MENU_COMPLETE
1910 option and other settings.
1911 In the form `yes=num', where `yes' may be any of the `true' val‐
1913 ues (`yes', `true', `on' and `1'), menu completion will be
1914 turned on if there are at least num matches. In the form
1915 `yes=long', menu completion will be turned on if the list does
1916 not fit on the screen. This does not activate menu completion
1917 if the widget normally only lists completions, but menu comple‐
1918 tion can be activated in that case with the value
1919 `yes=long-list' (Typically, the value `select=long-list'
1920 described later is more useful as it provides control over
1921 scrolling.)
1922 Similarly, with any of the `false' values (as in `no=10'), menu
1924 completion will not be used if there are num or more matches.
1925 The value of this widget also controls menu selection, as imple‐
1927 mented by the zsh/complist module. The following values may
1928 appear either alongside or instead of the values above.
1929 If the value contains the string `select', menu selection will
1931 be started unconditionally.
1932 In the form `select=num', menu selection will only be started if
1934 there are at least num matches. If the values for more than one
1935 tag provide a number, the smallest number is taken.
1936 Menu selection can be turned off explicitly by defining a value
1938 containing the string`no-select'.
1939 It is also possible to start menu selection only if the list of
1941 matches does not fit on the screen by using the value
1942 `select=long'. To start menu selection even if the current wid‐
1943 get only performs listing, use the value `select=long-list'.
1944 To turn on menu completion or menu selection when there are a
1946 certain number of matches or the list of matches does not fit on
1947 the screen, both of `yes=' and `select=' may be given twice,
1948 once with a number and once with `long' or `long-list'.
1949 Finally, it is possible to activate two special modes of menu
1951 selection. The word `interactive' in the value causes interac‐
1952 tive mode to be entered immediately when menu selection is
1953 started; see the description of the zsh/complist module in zsh‐
1954 modules(1) for a description of interactive mode. Including the
1955 string `search' does the same for incremental search mode. To
1956 select backward incremental search, include the string
1957 `search-backward'.
1958 muttrc If set, gives the location of the mutt configuration file. It
1960 defaults to `~/.muttrc'.
1961 numbers
1963 This is used with the jobs tag. If it is `true', the shell will
1964 complete job numbers instead of the shortest unambiguous prefix
1965 of the job command text. If the value is a number, job numbers
1966 will only be used if that many words from the job descriptions
1967 are required to resolve ambiguities. For example, if the value
1968 is `1', strings will only be used if all jobs differ in the
1969 first word on their command lines.
1970 old-list
1972 This is used by the _oldlist completer. If it is set to
1973 `always', then standard widgets which perform listing will
1974 retain the current list of matches, however they were generated;
1975 this can be turned off explicitly with the value `never', giving
1976 the behaviour without the _oldlist completer. If the style is
1977 unset, or any other value, then the existing list of completions
1978 is displayed if it is not already; otherwise, the standard com‐
1979 pletion list is generated; this is the default behaviour of
1980 _oldlist. However, if there is an old list and this style con‐
1981 tains the name of the completer function that generated the
1982 list, then the old list will be used even if it was generated by
1983 a widget which does not do listing.
1984 For example, suppose you type ^Xc to use the _correct_word wid‐
1986 get, which generates a list of corrections for the word under
1987 the cursor. Usually, typing ^D would generate a standard list
1988 of completions for the word on the command line, and show that.
1989 With _oldlist, it will instead show the list of corrections
1990 already generated.
1991 As another example consider the _match completer: with the
1993 insert-unambiguous style set to `true' it inserts only a common
1994 prefix string, if there is any. However, this may remove parts
1995 of the original pattern, so that further completion could pro‐
1996 duce more matches than on the first attempt. By using the
1997 _oldlist completer and setting this style to _match, the list of
1998 matches generated on the first attempt will be used again.
1999 old-matches
2001 This is used by the _all_matches completer to decide if an old
2002 list of matches should be used if one exists. This is selected
2003 by one of the `true' values or by the string `only'. If the
2004 value is `only', _all_matches will only use an old list and
2005 won't have any effect on the list of matches currently being
2006 generated.
2007 If this style is set it is generally unwise to call the
2009 _all_matches completer unconditionally. One possible use is for
2010 either this style or the completer style to be defined with the
2011 -e option to zstyle to make the style conditional.
2012 old-menu
2014 This is used by the _oldlist completer. It controls how menu
2015 completion behaves when a completion has already been inserted
2016 and the user types a standard completion key such as TAB. The
2017 default behaviour of _oldlist is that menu completion always
2018 continues with the existing list of completions. If this style
2019 is set to `false', however, a new completion is started if the
2020 old list was generated by a different completion command; this
2021 is the behaviour without the _oldlist completer.
2022 For example, suppose you type ^Xc to generate a list of correc‐
2024 tions, and menu completion is started in one of the usual ways.
2025 Usually, or with this style set to `false', typing TAB at this
2026 point would start trying to complete the line as it now appears.
2027 With _oldlist, it instead continues to cycle through the list of
2028 corrections.
2029 original
2031 This is used by the _approximate and _correct completers to
2032 decide if the original string should be added as a possible com‐
2033 pletion. Normally, this is done only if there are at least two
2034 possible corrections, but if this style is set to `true', it is
2035 always added. Note that the style will be examined with the
2036 completer field in the context name set to correct-num or
2037 approximate-num, where num is the number of errors that were
2038 accepted.
2039 packageset
2041 This style is used when completing arguments of the Debian
2042 `dpkg' program. It contains an override for the default package
2043 set for a given context. For example,
2044 zstyle ':completion:*:complete:dpkg:option--status-1:*' \
2046 packageset avail
2047 causes available packages, rather than only installed packages,
2049 to be completed for `dpkg --status'.
2050 path The function that completes color names uses this style with the
2052 colors tag. The value should be the pathname of a file contain‐
2053 ing color names in the format of an X11 rgb.txt file. If the
2054 style is not set but this file is found in one of various stan‐
2055 dard locations it will be used as the default.
2056 path-completion
2058 This is used by filename completion. By default, filename com‐
2059 pletion examines all components of a path to see if there are
2060 completions of that component. For example, /u/b/z can be com‐
2061 pleted to /usr/bin/zsh. Explicitly setting this style to
2062 `false' inhibits this behaviour for path components up to the /
2063 before the cursor; this overrides the setting of
2064 accept-exact-dirs.
2065 Even with the style set to `false', it is still possible to com‐
2067 plete multiple paths by setting the option COMPLETE_IN_WORD and
2068 moving the cursor back to the first component in the path to be
2069 completed. For example, /u/b/z can be completed to /usr/bin/zsh
2070 if the cursor is after the /u.
2071 pine-directory
2073 If set, specifies the directory containing PINE mailbox files.
2074 There is no default, since recursively searching this directory
2075 is inconvenient for anyone who doesn't use PINE.
2076 ports A list of Internet service names (network ports) to complete.
2078 If this is not set, service names are taken from the file
2079 `/etc/services'.
2080 prefix-hidden
2082 This is used for certain completions which share a common pre‐
2083 fix, for example command options beginning with dashes. If it
2084 is `true', the prefix will not be shown in the list of matches.
2085 The default value for this style is `false'.
2087 prefix-needed
2089 This style is also relevant for matches with a common prefix.
2090 If it is set to `true' this common prefix must be typed by the
2091 user to generate the matches.
2092 The style is applicable to the options, signals, jobs, func‐
2094 tions, and parameters completion tags.
2095 For command options, this means that the initial `-', `+', or
2097 `--' must be typed explicitly before option names will be com‐
2098 pleted.
2099 For signals, an initial `-' is required before signal names will
2101 be completed.
2102 For jobs, an initial `%' is required before job names will be
2104 completed.
2105 For function and parameter names, an initial `_' or `.' is
2107 required before function or parameter names starting with those
2108 characters will be completed.
2109 The default value for this style is `false' for function and
2111 parameter completions, and `true' otherwise.
2112 preserve-prefix
2114 This style is used when completing path names. Its value should
2115 be a pattern matching an initial prefix of the word to complete
2116 that should be left unchanged under all circumstances. For
2117 example, on some Unices an initial `//' (double slash) has a
2118 special meaning; setting this style to the string `//' will pre‐
2119 serve it. As another example, setting this style to `?:/' under
2120 Cygwin would allow completion after `a:/...' and so on.
2121 range This is used by the _history completer and the _history_com‐
2123 plete_word bindable command to decide which words should be com‐
2124 pleted.
2125 If it is a single number, only the last N words from the history
2127 will be completed.
2128 If it is a range of the form `max:slice', the last slice words
2130 will be completed; then if that yields no matches, the slice
2131 words before those will be tried and so on. This process stops
2132 either when at least one match has been found, or max words have
2133 been tried.
2134 The default is to complete all words from the history at once.
2136 recursive-files
2138 If this style is set, its value is an array of patterns to be
2139 tested against `$PWD/': note the trailing slash, which allows
2140 directories in the pattern to be delimited unambiguously by
2141 including slashes on both sides. If an ordinary file completion
2142 fails and the word on the command line does not yet have a
2143 directory part to its name, the style is retrieved using the
2144 same tag as for the completion just attempted, then the elements
2145 tested against $PWD/ in turn. If one matches, then the shell
2146 reattempts completion by prepending the word on the command line
2147 with each directory in the expansion of **/*(/) in turn. Typi‐
2148 cally the elements of the style will be set to restrict the num‐
2149 ber of directories beneath the current one to a manageable num‐
2150 ber, for example `*/.git/*'.
2151 For example,
2153 zstyle ':completion:*' recursive-files '*/zsh/*'
2155 If the current directory is /home/pws/zsh/Src, then zle_trTAB
2157 can be completed to Zle/zle_tricky.c.
2158 regular
2160 This style is used by the _expand_alias completer and bindable
2161 command. If set to `true' (the default), regular aliases will
2162 be expanded but only in command position. If it is set to
2163 `false', regular aliases will never be expanded. If it is set
2164 to `always', regular aliases will be expanded even if not in
2165 command position.
2166 rehash If this is set when completing external commands, the internal
2168 list (hash) of commands will be updated for each search by issu‐
2169 ing the rehash command. There is a speed penalty for this which
2170 is only likely to be noticeable when directories in the path
2171 have slow file access.
2172 remote-access
2174 If set to `false', certain commands will be prevented from mak‐
2175 ing Internet connections to retrieve remote information. This
2176 includes the completion for the CVS command.
2177 It is not always possible to know if connections are in fact to
2179 a remote site, so some may be prevented unnecessarily.
2180 remove-all-dups
2182 The _history_complete_word bindable command and the _history
2183 completer use this to decide if all duplicate matches should be
2184 removed, rather than just consecutive duplicates.
2185 select-prompt
2187 If this is set for the default tag, its value will be displayed
2188 during menu selection (see the menu style above) when the com‐
2189 pletion list does not fit on the screen as a whole. The same
2190 escapes as for the list-prompt style are understood, except that
2191 the numbers refer to the match or line the mark is on. A
2192 default prompt is used when the value is the empty string.
2193 select-scroll
2195 This style is tested for the default tag and determines how a
2196 completion list is scrolled during a menu selection (see the
2197 menu style above) when the completion list does not fit on the
2198 screen as a whole. If the value is `0' (zero), the list is
2199 scrolled by half-screenfuls; if it is a positive integer, the
2200 list is scrolled by the given number of lines; if it is a nega‐
2201 tive number, the list is scrolled by a screenful minus the abso‐
2202 lute value of the given number of lines. The default is to
2203 scroll by single lines.
2204 separate-sections
2206 This style is used with the manuals tag when completing names of
2207 manual pages. If it is `true', entries for different sections
2208 are added separately using tag names of the form `manual.X',
2209 where X is the section number. When the group-name style is
2210 also in effect, pages from different sections will appear sepa‐
2211 rately. This style is also used similarly with the words style
2212 when completing words for the dict command. It allows words from
2213 different dictionary databases to be added separately. The
2214 default for this style is `false'.
2215 show-ambiguity
2217 If the zsh/complist module is loaded, this style can be used to
2218 highlight the first ambiguous character in completion lists. The
2219 value is either a color indication such as those supported by
2220 the list-colors style or, with a value of `true', a default of
2221 underlining is selected. The highlighting is only applied if the
2222 completion display strings correspond to the actual matches.
2223 show-completer
2225 Tested whenever a new completer is tried. If it is `true', the
2226 completion system outputs a progress message in the listing area
2227 showing what completer is being tried. The message will be
2228 overwritten by any output when completions are found and is
2229 removed after completion is finished.
2230 single-ignored
2232 This is used by the _ignored completer when there is only one
2233 match. If its value is `show', the single match will be dis‐
2234 played but not inserted. If the value is `menu', then the sin‐
2235 gle match and the original string are both added as matches and
2236 menu completion is started, making it easy to select either of
2237 them.
2238 sort Many completion widgets call _description at some point which
2240 decides whether the matches are added sorted or unsorted (often
2241 indirectly via _wanted or _requested). This style can be set
2242 explicitly to one of the usual `true' or `false' values as an
2243 override. If it is not set for the context, the standard behav‐
2244 iour of the calling widget is used.
2245 The style is tested first against the full context including the
2247 tag, and if that fails to produce a value against the context
2248 without the tag.
2249 If the calling widget explicitly requests unsorted matches, this
2251 is usually honoured. However, the default (unsorted) behaviour
2252 of completion for the command history may be overridden by set‐
2253 ting the style to `true'.
2254 In the _expand completer, if it is set to `true', the expansions
2256 generated will always be sorted. If it is set to `menu', then
2257 the expansions are only sorted when they are offered as single
2258 strings but not in the string containing all possible expan‐
2259 sions.
2260 special-dirs
2262 Normally, the completion code will not produce the directory
2263 names `.' and `..' as possible completions. If this style is
2264 set to `true', it will add both `.' and `..' as possible comple‐
2265 tions; if it is set to `..', only `..' will be added.
2266 The following example sets special-dirs to `..' when the current
2268 prefix is empty, is a single `.', or consists only of a path
2269 beginning with `../'. Otherwise the value is `false'.
2270 zstyle -e ':completion:*' special-dirs \
2272 '[[ $PREFIX = (../)#(|.|..) ]] && reply=(..)'
2273 squeeze-slashes
2275 If set to `true', sequences of slashes in filename paths (for
2276 example in `foo//bar') will be treated as a single slash. This
2277 is the usual behaviour of UNIX paths. However, by default the
2278 file completion function behaves as if there were a `*' between
2279 the slashes.
2280 stop If set to `true', the _history_complete_word bindable command
2282 will stop once when reaching the beginning or end of the his‐
2283 tory. Invoking _history_complete_word will then wrap around to
2284 the opposite end of the history. If this style is set to
2285 `false' (the default), _history_complete_word will loop immedi‐
2286 ately as in a menu completion.
2287 strip-comments
2289 If set to `true', this style causes non-essential comment text
2290 to be removed from completion matches. Currently it is only
2291 used when completing e-mail addresses where it removes any dis‐
2292 play name from the addresses, cutting them down to plain
2293 user@host form.
2294 subst-globs-only
2296 This is used by the _expand completer. If it is set to `true',
2297 the expansion will only be used if it resulted from globbing;
2298 hence, if expansions resulted from the use of the substitute
2299 style described below, but these were not further changed by
2300 globbing, the expansions will be rejected.
2301 The default for this style is `false'.
2303 substitute
2305 This boolean style controls whether the _expand completer will
2306 first try to expand all substitutions in the string (such as
2307 `$(...)' and `${...}').
2308 The default is `true'.
2310 suffix This is used by the _expand completer if the word starts with a
2312 tilde or contains a parameter expansion. If it is set to
2313 `true', the word will only be expanded if it doesn't have a suf‐
2314 fix, i.e. if it is something like `~foo' or `$foo' rather than
2315 `~foo/' or `$foo/bar', unless that suffix itself contains char‐
2316 acters eligible for expansion. The default for this style is
2317 `true'.
2318 tag-order
2320 This provides a mechanism for sorting how the tags available in
2321 a particular context will be used.
2322 The values for the style are sets of space-separated lists of
2324 tags. The tags in each value will be tried at the same time; if
2325 no match is found, the next value is used. (See the file-pat‐
2326 terns style for an exception to this behavior.)
2327 For example:
2329 zstyle ':completion:*:complete:-command-:*:*' tag-order \
2331 'commands functions'
2332 specifies that completion in command position first offers
2334 external commands and shell functions. Remaining tags will be
2335 tried if no completions are found.
2336 In addition to tag names, each string in the value may take one
2338 of the following forms:
2339 - If any value consists of only a hyphen, then only the
2341 tags specified in the other values are generated. Nor‐
2342 mally all tags not explicitly selected are tried last if
2343 the specified tags fail to generate any matches. This
2344 means that a single value consisting only of a single
2345 hyphen turns off completion.
2346 ! tags...
2348 A string starting with an exclamation mark specifies
2349 names of tags that are not to be used. The effect is the
2350 same as if all other possible tags for the context had
2351 been listed.
2352 tag:label ...
2354 Here, tag is one of the standard tags and label is an
2355 arbitrary name. Matches are generated as normal but the
2356 name label is used in contexts instead of tag. This is
2357 not useful in words starting with !.
2358 If the label starts with a hyphen, the tag is prepended
2360 to the label to form the name used for lookup. This can
2361 be used to make the completion system try a certain tag
2362 more than once, supplying different style settings for
2363 each attempt; see below for an example.
2364 tag:label:description
2366 As before, but description will replace the `%d' in the
2367 value of the format style instead of the default descrip‐
2368 tion supplied by the completion function. Spaces in the
2369 description must be quoted with a backslash. A `%d'
2370 appearing in description is replaced with the description
2371 given by the completion function.
2372 In any of the forms above the tag may be a pattern or several
2374 patterns in the form `{pat1,pat2...}'. In this case all match‐
2375 ing tags will be used except for any given explicitly in the
2376 same string.
2377 One use of these features is to try one tag more than once, set‐
2379 ting other styles differently on each attempt, but still to use
2380 all the other tags without having to repeat them all. For exam‐
2381 ple, to make completion of function names in command position
2382 ignore all the completion functions starting with an underscore
2383 the first time completion is tried:
2384 zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:*' tag-order \
2386 'functions:-non-comp *' functions
2387 zstyle ':completion:*:functions-non-comp' \
2388 ignored-patterns '_*'
2389 On the first attempt, all tags will be offered but the functions
2391 tag will be replaced by functions-non-comp. The ignored-pat‐
2392 terns style is set for this tag to exclude functions starting
2393 with an underscore. If there are no matches, the second value
2394 of the tag-order style is used which completes functions using
2395 the default tag, this time presumably including all function
2396 names.
2397 The matches for one tag can be split into different groups. For
2399 example:
2400 zstyle ':completion:*' tag-order \
2402 'options:-long:long\ options
2403 options:-short:short\ options
2404 options:-single-letter:single\ letter\ options'
2405 zstyle ':completion:*:options-long' \
2406 ignored-patterns '[-+](|-|[^-]*)'
2407 zstyle ':completion:*:options-short' \
2408 ignored-patterns '--*' '[-+]?'
2409 zstyle ':completion:*:options-single-letter' \
2410 ignored-patterns '???*'
2411 With the group-names style set, options beginning with `--',
2413 options beginning with a single `-' or `+' but containing multi‐
2414 ple characters, and single-letter options will be displayed in
2415 separate groups with different descriptions.
2416 Another use of patterns is to try multiple match specifications
2418 one after another. The matcher-list style offers something sim‐
2419 ilar, but it is tested very early in the completion system and
2420 hence can't be set for single commands nor for more specific
2421 contexts. Here is how to try normal completion without any
2422 match specification and, if that generates no matches, try again
2423 with case-insensitive matching, restricting the effect to argu‐
2424 ments of the command foo:
2425 zstyle ':completion:*:*:foo:*:*' tag-order '*' '*:-case'
2427 zstyle ':completion:*-case' matcher 'm:{a-z}={A-Z}'
2428 First, all the tags offered when completing after foo are tried
2430 using the normal tag name. If that generates no matches, the
2431 second value of tag-order is used, which tries all tags again
2432 except that this time each has -case appended to its name for
2433 lookup of styles. Hence this time the value for the matcher
2434 style from the second call to zstyle in the example is used to
2435 make completion case-insensitive.
2436 It is possible to use the -e option of the zstyle builtin com‐
2438 mand to specify conditions for the use of particular tags. For
2439 example:
2440 zstyle -e '*:-command-:*' tag-order '
2442 if [[ -n $PREFIX$SUFFIX ]]; then
2443 reply=( )
2444 else
2445 reply=( - )
2446 fi'
2447 Completion in command position will be attempted only if the
2449 string typed so far is not empty. This is tested using the PRE‐
2450 FIX special parameter; see zshcompwid for a description of
2451 parameters which are special inside completion widgets. Setting
2452 reply to an empty array provides the default behaviour of trying
2453 all tags at once; setting it to an array containing only a
2454 hyphen disables the use of all tags and hence of all comple‐
2455 tions.
2456 If no tag-order style has been defined for a context, the
2458 strings `(|*-)argument-* (|*-)option-* values' and `options'
2459 plus all tags offered by the completion function will be used to
2460 provide a sensible default behavior that causes arguments
2461 (whether normal command arguments or arguments of options) to be
2462 completed before option names for most commands.
2463 urls This is used together with the urls tag by functions completing
2465 URLs.
2466 If the value consists of more than one string, or if the only
2468 string does not name a file or directory, the strings are used
2469 as the URLs to complete.
2470 If the value contains only one string which is the name of a
2472 normal file the URLs are taken from that file (where the URLs
2473 may be separated by white space or newlines).
2474 Finally, if the only string in the value names a directory, the
2476 directory hierarchy rooted at this directory gives the comple‐
2477 tions. The top level directory should be the file access
2478 method, such as `http', `ftp', `bookmark' and so on. In many
2479 cases the next level of directories will be a filename. The
2480 directory hierarchy can descend as deep as necessary.
2481 For example,
2483 zstyle ':completion:*' urls ~/.urls
2485 mkdir -p ~/.urls/ftp/ftp.zsh.org/pub
2486 allows completion of all the components of the URL
2488 ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub after suitable commands such as `netscape'
2489 or `lynx'. Note, however, that access methods and files are
2490 completed separately, so if the hosts style is set hosts can be
2491 completed without reference to the urls style.
2492 See the description in the function _urls itself for more infor‐
2494 mation (e.g. `more $^fpath/_urls(N)').
2495 use-cache
2497 If this is set, the completion caching layer is activated for
2498 any completions which use it (via the _store_cache,
2499 _retrieve_cache, and _cache_invalid functions). The directory
2500 containing the cache files can be changed with the cache-path
2501 style.
2502 use-compctl
2504 If this style is set to a string not equal to false, 0, no, and
2505 off, the completion system may use any completion specifications
2506 defined with the compctl builtin command. If the style is
2507 unset, this is done only if the zsh/compctl module is loaded.
2508 The string may also contain the substring `first' to use comple‐
2509 tions defined with `compctl -T', and the substring `default' to
2510 use the completion defined with `compctl -D'.
2511 Note that this is only intended to smooth the transition from
2513 compctl to the new completion system and may disappear in the
2514 future.
2515 Note also that the definitions from compctl will only be used if
2517 there is no specific completion function for the command in
2518 question. For example, if there is a function _foo to complete
2519 arguments to the command foo, compctl will never be invoked for
2520 foo. However, the compctl version will be tried if foo only
2521 uses default completion.
2522 use-ip By default, the function _hosts that completes host names strips
2524 IP addresses from entries read from host databases such as NIS
2525 and ssh files. If this style is `true', the corresponding IP
2526 addresses can be completed as well. This style is not use in
2527 any context where the hosts style is set; note also it must be
2528 set before the cache of host names is generated (typically the
2529 first completion attempt).
2530 users This may be set to a list of usernames to be completed. If it
2532 is not set all usernames will be completed. Note that if it is
2533 set only that list of users will be completed; this is because
2534 on some systems querying all users can take a prohibitive amount
2535 of time.
2536 users-hosts
2538 The values of this style should be of the form `user@host' or
2539 `user:host'. It is used for commands that need pairs of user-
2540 and hostnames. These commands will complete usernames from this
2541 style (only), and will restrict subsequent hostname completion
2542 to hosts paired with that user in one of the values of the
2543 style.
2544 It is possible to group values for sets of commands which allow
2546 a remote login, such as rlogin and ssh, by using the my-accounts
2547 tag. Similarly, values for sets of commands which usually refer
2548 to the accounts of other people, such as talk and finger, can be
2549 grouped by using the other-accounts tag. More ambivalent com‐
2550 mands may use the accounts tag.
2551 users-hosts-ports
2553 Like users-hosts but used for commands like telnet and contain‐
2554 ing strings of the form `user@host:port'.
2555 verbose
2557 If set, as it is by default, the completion listing is more ver‐
2558 bose. In particular many commands show descriptions for options
2559 if this style is `true'.
2560 word This is used by the _list completer, which prevents the inser‐
2562 tion of completions until a second completion attempt when the
2563 line has not changed. The normal way of finding out if the line
2564 has changed is to compare its entire contents between the two
2565 occasions. If this style is `true', the comparison is instead
2566 performed only on the current word. Hence if completion is per‐
2567 formed on another word with the same contents, completion will
2568 not be delayed.
2569
2571 The initialization script compinit redefines all the widgets which per‐
2572 form completion to call the supplied widget function _main_complete.
2573 This function acts as a wrapper calling the so-called `completer' func‐
2574 tions that generate matches. If _main_complete is called with argu‐
2575 ments, these are taken as the names of completer functions to be called
2576 in the order given. If no arguments are given, the set of functions to
2577 try is taken from the completer style. For example, to use normal com‐
2578 pletion and correction if that doesn't generate any matches:
2579 zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _correct
2581 after calling compinit. The default value for this style is `_complete
2583 _ignored', i.e. normally only ordinary completion is tried, first with
2584 the effect of the ignored-patterns style and then without it. The
2585 _main_complete function uses the return status of the completer func‐
2586 tions to decide if other completers should be called. If the return
2587 status is zero, no other completers are tried and the _main_complete
2588 function returns.
2589 If the first argument to _main_complete is a single hyphen, the argu‐
2591 ments will not be taken as names of completers. Instead, the second
2592 argument gives a name to use in the completer field of the context and
2593 the other arguments give a command name and arguments to call to gener‐
2594 ate the matches.
2595 The following completer functions are contained in the distribution,
2597 although users may write their own. Note that in contexts the leading
2598 underscore is stripped, for example basic completion is performed in
2599 the context `:completion::complete:...'.
2600 _all_matches
2602 This completer can be used to add a string consisting of all
2603 other matches. As it influences later completers it must appear
2604 as the first completer in the list. The list of all matches is
2605 affected by the avoid-completer and old-matches styles described
2606 above.
2607 It may be useful to use the _generic function described below to
2609 bind _all_matches to its own keystroke, for example:
2610 zle -C all-matches complete-word _generic
2612 bindkey '^Xa' all-matches
2613 zstyle ':completion:all-matches:*' old-matches only
2614 zstyle ':completion:all-matches::::' completer _all_matches
2615 Note that this does not generate completions by itself: first
2617 use any of the standard ways of generating a list of comple‐
2618 tions, then use ^Xa to show all matches. It is possible instead
2619 to add a standard completer to the list and request that the
2620 list of all matches should be directly inserted:
2621 zstyle ':completion:all-matches::::' completer \
2623 _all_matches _complete
2624 zstyle ':completion:all-matches:*' insert true
2625 In this case the old-matches style should not be set.
2627 _approximate
2629 This is similar to the basic _complete completer but allows the
2630 completions to undergo corrections. The maximum number of
2631 errors can be specified by the max-errors style; see the
2632 description of approximate matching in zshexpn(1) for how errors
2633 are counted. Normally this completer will only be tried after
2634 the normal _complete completer:
2635 zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _approximate
2637 This will give correcting completion if and only if normal com‐
2639 pletion yields no possible completions. When corrected comple‐
2640 tions are found, the completer will normally start menu comple‐
2641 tion allowing you to cycle through these strings.
2642 This completer uses the tags corrections and original when gen‐
2644 erating the possible corrections and the original string. The
2645 format style for the former may contain the additional sequences
2646 `%e' and `%o' which will be replaced by the number of errors
2647 accepted to generate the corrections and the original string,
2648 respectively.
2649 The completer progressively increases the number of errors
2651 allowed up to the limit by the max-errors style, hence if a com‐
2652 pletion is found with one error, no completions with two errors
2653 will be shown, and so on. It modifies the completer name in the
2654 context to indicate the number of errors being tried: on the
2655 first try the completer field contains `approximate-1', on the
2656 second try `approximate-2', and so on.
2657 When _approximate is called from another function, the number of
2659 errors to accept may be passed with the -a option. The argument
2660 is in the same format as the max-errors style, all in one
2661 string.
2662 Note that this completer (and the _correct completer mentioned
2664 below) can be quite expensive to call, especially when a large
2665 number of errors are allowed. One way to avoid this is to set
2666 up the completer style using the -e option to zstyle so that
2667 some completers are only used when completion is attempted a
2668 second time on the same string, e.g.:
2669 zstyle -e ':completion:*' completer '
2671 if [[ $_last_try != "$HISTNO$BUFFER$CURSOR" ]]; then
2672 _last_try="$HISTNO$BUFFER$CURSOR"
2673 reply=(_complete _match _prefix)
2674 else
2675 reply=(_ignored _correct _approximate)
2676 fi'
2677 This uses the HISTNO parameter and the BUFFER and CURSOR special
2679 parameters that are available inside zle and completion widgets
2680 to find out if the command line hasn't changed since the last
2681 time completion was tried. Only then are the _ignored, _correct
2682 and _approximate completers called.
2683 _canonical_paths [ -A var ] [ -N ] [ -MJV12nfX ] tag descr [ paths ...
2685 ]
2686 This completion function completes all paths given to it, and
2687 also tries to offer completions which point to the same file as
2688 one of the paths given (relative path when an absolute path is
2689 given, and vice versa; when ..'s are present in the word to be
2690 completed; and some paths got from symlinks).
2691 -A, if specified, takes the paths from the array variable speci‐
2693 fied. Paths can also be specified on the command line as shown
2694 above. -N, if specified, prevents canonicalizing the paths
2695 given before using them for completion, in case they are already
2696 so. The options -M, -J, -V, -1, -2, -n, -F, -X are passed to
2697 compadd.
2698 See _description for a description of tag and descr.
2700 _cmdambivalent
2702 Completes the remaining positional arguments as an external com‐
2703 mand. The external command and its arguments are completed as
2704 separate arguments (in a manner appropriate for completing
2705 /usr/bin/env) if there are two or more remaining positional
2706 arguments on the command line, and as a quoted command string
2707 (in the manner of system(...)) otherwise. See also _cmdstring
2708 and _precommand.
2709 This function takes no arguments.
2711 _cmdstring
2713 Completes an external command as a single argument, as for sys‐
2714 tem(...).
2715 _complete
2717 This completer generates all possible completions in a con‐
2718 text-sensitive manner, i.e. using the settings defined with the
2719 compdef function explained above and the current settings of all
2720 special parameters. This gives the normal completion behaviour.
2721 To complete arguments of commands, _complete uses the utility
2723 function _normal, which is in turn responsible for finding the
2724 particular function; it is described below. Various contexts of
2725 the form -context- are handled specifically. These are all men‐
2726 tioned above as possible arguments to the #compdef tag.
2727 Before trying to find a function for a specific context, _com‐
2729 plete checks if the parameter `compcontext' is set. Setting
2730 `compcontext' allows the usual completion dispatching to be
2731 overridden which is useful in places such as a function that
2732 uses vared for input. If it is set to an array, the elements are
2733 taken to be the possible matches which will be completed using
2734 the tag `values' and the description `value'. If it is set to an
2735 associative array, the keys are used as the possible completions
2736 and the values (if non-empty) are used as descriptions for the
2737 matches. If `compcontext' is set to a string containing colons,
2738 it should be of the form `tag:descr:action'. In this case the
2739 tag and descr give the tag and description to use and the action
2740 indicates what should be completed in one of the forms accepted
2741 by the _arguments utility function described below.
2742 Finally, if `compcontext' is set to a string without colons, the
2744 value is taken as the name of the context to use and the func‐
2745 tion defined for that context will be called. For this purpose,
2746 there is a special context named -command-line- that completes
2747 whole command lines (commands and their arguments). This is not
2748 used by the completion system itself but is nonetheless handled
2749 when explicitly called.
2750 _correct
2752 Generate corrections, but not completions, for the current word;
2753 this is similar to _approximate but will not allow any number of
2754 extra characters at the cursor as that completer does. The
2755 effect is similar to spell-checking. It is based on _approxi‐
2756 mate, but the completer field in the context name is correct.
2757 For example, with:
2759 zstyle ':completion:::::' completer \
2761 _complete _correct _approximate
2762 zstyle ':completion:*:correct:::' max-errors 2 not-numeric
2763 zstyle ':completion:*:approximate:::' max-errors 3 numeric
2764 correction will accept up to two errors. If a numeric argument
2766 is given, correction will not be performed, but correcting com‐
2767 pletion will be, and will accept as many errors as given by the
2768 numeric argument. Without a numeric argument, first correction
2769 and then correcting completion will be tried, with the first one
2770 accepting two errors and the second one accepting three errors.
2771 When _correct is called as a function, the number of errors to
2773 accept may be given following the -a option. The argument is in
2774 the same form a values to the accept style, all in one string.
2775 This completer function is intended to be used without the
2777 _approximate completer or, as in the example, just before it.
2778 Using it after the _approximate completer is useless since
2779 _approximate will at least generate the corrected strings gener‐
2780 ated by the _correct completer -- and probably more.
2781 _expand
2783 This completer function does not really perform completion, but
2784 instead checks if the word on the command line is eligible for
2785 expansion and, if it is, gives detailed control over how this
2786 expansion is done. For this to happen, the completion system
2787 needs to be invoked with complete-word, not expand-or-complete
2788 (the default binding for TAB), as otherwise the string will be
2789 expanded by the shell's internal mechanism before the completion
2790 system is started. Note also this completer should be called
2791 before the _complete completer function.
2792 The tags used when generating expansions are all-expansions for
2794 the string containing all possible expansions, expansions when
2795 adding the possible expansions as single matches and original
2796 when adding the original string from the line. The order in
2797 which these strings are generated, if at all, can be controlled
2798 by the group-order and tag-order styles, as usual.
2799 The format string for all-expansions and for expansions may con‐
2801 tain the sequence `%o' which will be replaced by the original
2802 string from the line.
2803 The kind of expansion to be tried is controlled by the substi‐
2805 tute, glob and subst-globs-only styles.
2806 It is also possible to call _expand as a function, in which case
2808 the different modes may be selected with options: -s for substi‐
2809 tute, -g for glob and -o for subst-globs-only.
2810 _expand_alias
2812 If the word the cursor is on is an alias, it is expanded and no
2813 other completers are called. The types of aliases which are to
2814 be expanded can be controlled with the styles regular, global
2815 and disabled.
2816 This function is also a bindable command, see the section `Bind‐
2818 able Commands' below.
2819 _extensions
2821 If the cursor follows the string `*.', filename extensions are
2822 completed. The extensions are taken from files in current direc‐
2823 tory or a directory specified at the beginning of the current
2824 word. For exact matches, completion continues to allow other
2825 completers such as _expand to expand the pattern. The standard
2826 add-space and prefix-hidden styles are observed.
2827 _external_pwds
2829 Completes current directories of other zsh processes belonging
2830 to the current user.
2831 This is intended to be used via _generic, bound to a custom key
2833 combination. Note that pattern matching is enabled so matching
2834 is performed similar to how it works with the _match completer.
2835 _history
2837 Complete words from the shell's command history. This com‐
2838 pleter can be controlled by the remove-all-dups, and sort styles
2839 as for the _history_complete_word bindable command, see the sec‐
2840 tion `Bindable Commands' below and the section `Completion Sys‐
2841 tem Configuration' above.
2842 _ignored
2844 The ignored-patterns style can be set to a list of patterns
2845 which are compared against possible completions; matching ones
2846 are removed. With this completer those matches can be rein‐
2847 stated, as if no ignored-patterns style were set. The completer
2848 actually generates its own list of matches; which completers are
2849 invoked is determined in the same way as for the _prefix com‐
2850 pleter. The single-ignored style is also available as described
2851 above.
2852 _list This completer allows the insertion of matches to be delayed
2854 until completion is attempted a second time without the word on
2855 the line being changed. On the first attempt, only the list of
2856 matches will be shown. It is affected by the styles condition
2857 and word, see the section `Completion System Configuration'
2858 above.
2859 _match This completer is intended to be used after the _complete com‐
2861 pleter. It behaves similarly but the string on the command line
2862 may be a pattern to match against trial completions. This gives
2863 the effect of the GLOB_COMPLETE option.
2864 Normally completion will be performed by taking the pattern from
2866 the line, inserting a `*' at the cursor position and comparing
2867 the resulting pattern with the possible completions generated.
2868 This can be modified with the match-original style described
2869 above.
2870 The generated matches will be offered in a menu completion
2872 unless the insert-unambiguous style is set to `true'; see the
2873 description above for other options for this style.
2874 Note that matcher specifications defined globally or used by the
2876 completion functions (the styles matcher-list and matcher) will
2877 not be used.
2878 _menu This completer was written as simple example function to show
2880 how menu completion can be enabled in shell code. However, it
2881 has the notable effect of disabling menu selection which can be
2882 useful with _generic based widgets. It should be used as the
2883 first completer in the list. Note that this is independent of
2884 the setting of the MENU_COMPLETE option and does not work with
2885 the other menu completion widgets such as reverse-menu-complete,
2886 or accept-and-menu-complete.
2887 _oldlist
2889 This completer controls how the standard completion widgets
2890 behave when there is an existing list of completions which may
2891 have been generated by a special completion (i.e. a sepa‐
2892 rately-bound completion command). It allows the ordinary com‐
2893 pletion keys to continue to use the list of completions thus
2894 generated, instead of producing a new list of ordinary contex‐
2895 tual completions. It should appear in the list of completers
2896 before any of the widgets which generate matches. It uses two
2897 styles: old-list and old-menu, see the section `Completion Sys‐
2898 tem Configuration' above.
2899 _precommand
2901 Complete an external command in word-separated arguments, as for
2902 exec and /usr/bin/env.
2903 _prefix
2905 This completer can be used to try completion with the suffix
2906 (everything after the cursor) ignored. In other words, the suf‐
2907 fix will not be considered to be part of the word to complete.
2908 The effect is similar to the expand-or-complete-prefix command.
2909 The completer style is used to decide which other completers are
2911 to be called to generate matches. If this style is unset, the
2912 list of completers set for the current context is used --
2913 except, of course, the _prefix completer itself. Furthermore,
2914 if this completer appears more than once in the list of com‐
2915 pleters only those completers not already tried by the last
2916 invocation of _prefix will be called.
2917 For example, consider this global completer style:
2919 zstyle ':completion:*' completer \
2921 _complete _prefix _correct _prefix:foo
2922 Here, the _prefix completer tries normal completion but ignoring
2924 the suffix. If that doesn't generate any matches, and neither
2925 does the call to the _correct completer after it, _prefix will
2926 be called a second time and, now only trying correction with the
2927 suffix ignored. On the second invocation the completer part of
2928 the context appears as `foo'.
2929 To use _prefix as the last resort and try only normal completion
2931 when it is invoked:
2932 zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete ... _prefix
2934 zstyle ':completion::prefix:*' completer _complete
2935 The add-space style is also respected. If it is set to `true'
2937 then _prefix will insert a space between the matches generated
2938 (if any) and the suffix.
2939 Note that this completer is only useful if the COMPLETE_IN_WORD
2941 option is set; otherwise, the cursor will be moved to the end of
2942 the current word before the completion code is called and hence
2943 there will be no suffix.
2944 _user_expand
2946 This completer behaves similarly to the _expand completer but
2947 instead performs expansions defined by users. The styles
2948 add-space and sort styles specific to the _expand completer are
2949 usable with _user_expand in addition to other styles handled
2950 more generally by the completion system. The tag all-expansions
2951 is also available.
2952 The expansion depends on the array style user-expand being
2954 defined for the current context; remember that the context for
2955 completers is less specific than that for contextual completion
2956 as the full context has not yet been determined. Elements of
2957 the array may have one of the following forms:
2958 $hash
2960 hash is the name of an associative array. Note this is
2962 not a full parameter expression, merely a $, suitably
2963 quoted to prevent immediate expansion, followed by the
2964 name of an associative array. If the trial expansion
2965 word matches a key in hash, the resulting expansion is
2966 the corresponding value.
2967 _func
2968 _func is the name of a shell function whose name must
2970 begin with _ but is not otherwise special to the comple‐
2971 tion system. The function is called with the trial word
2972 as an argument. If the word is to be expanded, the func‐
2973 tion should set the array reply to a list of expansions.
2974 Optionally, it can set REPLY to a word that will be used
2975 as a description for the set of expansions. The return
2976 status of the function is irrelevant.
2978 In addition to the context-dependent completions provided, which are
2979 expected to work in an intuitively obvious way, there are a few widgets
2980 implementing special behaviour which can be bound separately to keys.
2981 The following is a list of these and their default bindings.
2982 _bash_completions
2984 This function is used by two widgets, _bash_complete-word and
2985 _bash_list-choices. It exists to provide compatibility with
2986 completion bindings in bash. The last character of the binding
2987 determines what is completed: `!', command names; `$', environ‐
2988 ment variables; `@', host names; `/', file names; `~' user
2989 names. In bash, the binding preceded by `\e' gives completion,
2990 and preceded by `^X' lists options. As some of these bindings
2991 clash with standard zsh bindings, only `\e~' and `^X~' are bound
2992 by default. To add the rest, the following should be added to
2993 .zshrc after compinit has been run:
2994 for key in '!' '$' '@' '/' '~'; do
2996 bindkey "\e$key" _bash_complete-word
2997 bindkey "^X$key" _bash_list-choices
2998 done
2999 This includes the bindings for `~' in case they were already
3001 bound to something else; the completion code does not override
3002 user bindings.
3003 _correct_filename (^XC)
3005 Correct the filename path at the cursor position. Allows up to
3006 six errors in the name. Can also be called with an argument to
3007 correct a filename path, independently of zle; the correction is
3008 printed on standard output.
3009 _correct_word (^Xc)
3011 Performs correction of the current argument using the usual con‐
3012 textual completions as possible choices. This stores the string
3013 `correct-word' in the function field of the context name and
3014 then calls the _correct completer.
3015 _expand_alias (^Xa)
3017 This function can be used as a completer and as a bindable com‐
3018 mand. It expands the word the cursor is on if it is an alias.
3019 The types of alias expanded can be controlled with the styles
3020 regular, global and disabled.
3021 When used as a bindable command there is one additional feature
3023 that can be selected by setting the complete style to `true'.
3024 In this case, if the word is not the name of an alias,
3025 _expand_alias tries to complete the word to a full alias name
3026 without expanding it. It leaves the cursor directly after the
3027 completed word so that invoking _expand_alias once more will
3028 expand the now-complete alias name.
3029 _expand_word (^Xe)
3031 Performs expansion on the current word: equivalent to the stan‐
3032 dard expand-word command, but using the _expand completer.
3033 Before calling it, the function field of the context is set to
3034 `expand-word'.
3035 _generic
3037 This function is not defined as a widget and not bound by
3038 default. However, it can be used to define a widget and will
3039 then store the name of the widget in the function field of the
3040 context and call the completion system. This allows custom com‐
3041 pletion widgets with their own set of style settings to be
3042 defined easily. For example, to define a widget that performs
3043 normal completion and starts menu selection:
3044 zle -C foo complete-word _generic
3046 bindkey '...' foo
3047 zstyle ':completion:foo:*' menu yes select=1
3048 Note in particular that the completer style may be set for the
3050 context in order to change the set of functions used to generate
3051 possible matches. If _generic is called with arguments, those
3052 are passed through to _main_complete as the list of completers
3053 in place of those defined by the completer style.
3054 _history_complete_word (\e/)
3056 Complete words from the shell's command history. This uses the
3057 list, remove-all-dups, sort, and stop styles.
3058 _most_recent_file (^Xm)
3060 Complete the name of the most recently modified file matching
3061 the pattern on the command line (which may be blank). If given
3062 a numeric argument N, complete the Nth most recently modified
3063 file. Note the completion, if any, is always unique.
3064 _next_tags (^Xn)
3066 This command alters the set of matches used to that for the next
3067 tag, or set of tags, either as given by the tag-order style or
3068 as set by default; these matches would otherwise not be avail‐
3069 able. Successive invocations of the command cycle through all
3070 possible sets of tags.
3071 _read_comp (^X^R)
3073 Prompt the user for a string, and use that to perform completion
3074 on the current word. There are two possibilities for the
3075 string. First, it can be a set of words beginning `_', for
3076 example `_files -/', in which case the function with any argu‐
3077 ments will be called to generate the completions. Unambiguous
3078 parts of the function name will be completed automatically (nor‐
3079 mal completion is not available at this point) until a space is
3080 typed.
3081 Second, any other string will be passed as a set of arguments to
3083 compadd and should hence be an expression specifying what should
3084 be completed.
3085 A very restricted set of editing commands is available when
3087 reading the string: `DEL' and `^H' delete the last character;
3088 `^U' deletes the line, and `^C' and `^G' abort the function,
3089 while `RET' accepts the completion. Note the string is used
3090 verbatim as a command line, so arguments must be quoted in
3091 accordance with standard shell rules.
3092 Once a string has been read, the next call to _read_comp will
3094 use the existing string instead of reading a new one. To force
3095 a new string to be read, call _read_comp with a numeric argu‐
3096 ment.
3097 _complete_debug (^X?)
3099 This widget performs ordinary completion, but captures in a tem‐
3100 porary file a trace of the shell commands executed by the com‐
3101 pletion system. Each completion attempt gets its own file. A
3102 command to view each of these files is pushed onto the editor
3103 buffer stack.
3104 _complete_help (^Xh)
3106 This widget displays information about the context names, the
3107 tags, and the completion functions used when completing at the
3108 current cursor position. If given a numeric argument other than
3109 1 (as in `ESC-2 ^Xh'), then the styles used and the contexts for
3110 which they are used will be shown, too.
3111 Note that the information about styles may be incomplete; it
3113 depends on the information available from the completion func‐
3114 tions called, which in turn is determined by the user's own
3115 styles and other settings.
3116 _complete_help_generic
3118 Unlike other commands listed here, this must be created as a
3119 normal ZLE widget rather than a completion widget (i.e. with zle
3120 -N). It is used for generating help with a widget bound to the
3121 _generic widget that is described above.
3122 If this widget is created using the name of the function, as it
3124 is by default, then when executed it will read a key sequence.
3125 This is expected to be bound to a call to a completion function
3126 that uses the _generic widget. That widget will be executed,
3127 and information provided in the same format that the _com‐
3128 plete_help widget displays for contextual completion.
3129 If the widget's name contains debug, for example if it is cre‐
3131 ated as `zle -N _complete_debug_generic _complete_help_generic',
3132 it will read and execute the keystring for a generic widget as
3133 before, but then generate debugging information as done by _com‐
3134 plete_debug for contextual completion.
3135 If the widget's name contains noread, it will not read a
3137 keystring but instead arrange that the next use of a generic
3138 widget run in the same shell will have the effect as described
3139 above.
3140 The widget works by setting the shell parameter
3142 ZSH_TRACE_GENERIC_WIDGET which is read by _generic. Unsetting
3143 the parameter cancels any pending effect of the noread form.
3144 For example, after executing the following:
3146 zle -N _complete_debug_generic _complete_help_generic
3148 bindkey '^x:' _complete_debug_generic
3149 typing `C-x :' followed by the key sequence for a generic widget
3151 will cause trace output for that widget to be saved to a file.
3152 _complete_tag (^Xt)
3154 This widget completes symbol tags created by the etags or ctags
3155 programmes (note there is no connection with the completion sys‐
3156 tem's tags) stored in a file TAGS, in the format used by etags,
3157 or tags, in the format created by ctags. It will look back up
3158 the path hierarchy for the first occurrence of either file; if
3159 both exist, the file TAGS is preferred. You can specify the
3160 full path to a TAGS or tags file by setting the parameter $TAGS‐
3161 FILE or $tagsfile respectively. The corresponding completion
3162 tags used are etags and vtags, after emacs and vi respectively.
3163
3165 Descriptions follow for utility functions that may be useful when writ‐
3166 ing completion functions. If functions are installed in subdirecto‐
3167 ries, most of these reside in the Base subdirectory. Like the example
3168 functions for commands in the distribution, the utility functions gen‐
3169 erating matches all follow the convention of returning status zero if
3170 they generated completions and non-zero if no matching completions
3171 could be added.
3172 _absolute_command_paths
3174 This function completes external commands as absolute paths
3175 (unlike _command_names -e which completes their basenames). It
3176 takes no arguments.
3177 _all_labels [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ command arg ... ]
3179 This is a convenient interface to the _next_label function
3180 below, implementing the loop shown in the _next_label example.
3181 The command and its arguments are called to generate the
3182 matches. The options stored in the parameter name will automat‐
3183 ically be inserted into the args passed to the command. Nor‐
3184 mally, they are put directly after the command, but if one of
3185 the args is a single hyphen, they are inserted directly before
3186 that. If the hyphen is the last argument, it will be removed
3187 from the argument list before the command is called. This
3188 allows _all_labels to be used in almost all cases where the
3189 matches can be generated by a single call to the compadd builtin
3190 command or by a call to one of the utility functions.
3191 For example:
3193 local expl
3195 ...
3196 if _requested foo; then
3197 ...
3198 _all_labels foo expl '...' compadd ... - $matches
3199 fi
3200 Will complete the strings from the matches parameter, using com‐
3202 padd with additional options which will take precedence over
3203 those generated by _all_labels.
3204 _alternative [ -O name ] [ -C name ] spec ...
3206 This function is useful in simple cases where multiple tags are
3207 available. Essentially it implements a loop like the one
3208 described for the _tags function below.
3209 The tags to use and the action to perform if a tag is requested
3211 are described using the specs which are of the form:
3212 `tag:descr:action'. The tags are offered using _tags and if the
3213 tag is requested, the action is executed with the given descrip‐
3214 tion descr. The actions are those accepted by the _arguments
3215 function (described below), excluding the `->state' and `=...'
3216 forms.
3217 For example, the action may be a simple function call:
3219 _alternative \
3221 'users:user:_users' \
3222 'hosts:host:_hosts'
3223 offers usernames and hostnames as possible matches, generated by
3225 the _users and _hosts functions respectively.
3226 Like _arguments, this function uses _all_labels to execute the
3228 actions, which will loop over all sets of tags. Special han‐
3229 dling is only required if there is an additional valid tag, for
3230 example inside a function called from _alternative.
3231 The option `-O name' is used in the same way as by the _argu‐
3233 ments function. In other words, the elements of the name array
3234 will be passed to compadd when executing an action.
3235 Like _tags this function supports the -C option to give a dif‐
3237 ferent name for the argument context field.
3238 _arguments [ -nswWCRS ] [ -A pat ] [ -O name ] [ -M matchspec ]
3241 [ : ] spec ...
3242 _arguments [ opt ... ] -- [ -l ] [ -i pats ] [ -s pair ]
3243 [ helpspec ...]
3244 This function can be used to give a complete specification for
3245 completion for a command whose arguments follow standard UNIX
3246 option and argument conventions.
3247 Options Overview
3249 Options to _arguments itself must be in separate words, i.e. -s
3251 -w, not -sw. The options are followed by specs that describe
3252 options and arguments of the analyzed command. To avoid ambigu‐
3253 ity, all options to _arguments itself may be separated from the
3254 spec forms by a single colon.
3255 The `--' form is used to intuit spec forms from the help output
3257 of the command being analyzed, and is described in detail below.
3258 The opts for the `--' form are otherwise the same options as the
3259 first form. Note that `-s' following `--' has a distinct mean‐
3260 ing from `-s' preceding `--', and both may appear.
3261 The option switches -s, -S, -A, -w, and -W affect how _arguments
3263 parses the analyzed command line's options. These switches are
3264 useful for commands with standard argument parsing.
3265 The options of _arguments have the following meanings:
3267 -n With this option, _arguments sets the parameter NORMARG
3269 to the position of the first normal argument in the
3270 $words array, i.e. the position after the end of the
3271 options. If that argument has not been reached, NORMARG
3272 is set to -1. The caller should declare `integer NOR‐
3273 MARG' if the -n option is passed; otherwise the parameter
3274 is not used.
3275 -s Enable option stacking for single-letter options, whereby
3277 multiple single-letter options may be combined into a
3278 single word. For example, the two options `-x' and `-y'
3279 may be combined into a single word `-xy'. By default,
3280 every word corresponds to a single option name (`-xy' is
3281 a single option named `xy').
3282 Options beginning with a single hyphen or plus sign are
3284 eligible for stacking; words beginning with two hyphens
3285 are not.
3286 Note that -s after -- has a different meaning, which is
3288 documented in the segment entitled `Deriving spec forms
3289 from the help output'.
3290 -w In combination with -s, allow option stacking even if one
3292 or more of the options take arguments. For example, if
3293 -x takes an argument, with no -s, `-xy' is considered as
3294 a single (unhandled) option; with -s, -xy is an option
3295 with the argument `y'; with both -s and -w, -xy is the
3296 option -x and the option -y with arguments to -x (and to
3297 -y, if it takes arguments) still to come in subsequent
3298 words.
3299 -W This option takes -w a stage further: it is possible to
3301 complete single-letter options even after an argument
3302 that occurs in the same word. However, it depends on the
3303 action performed whether options will really be completed
3304 at this point. For more control, use a utility function
3305 like _guard as part of the action.
3306 -C Modify the curcontext parameter for an action of the form
3308 `->state'. This is discussed in detail below.
3309 -R Return status 300 instead of zero when a $state is to be
3311 handled, in the `->string' syntax.
3312 -S Do not complete options after a `--' appearing on the
3314 line, and ignore the `--'. For example, with -S, in the
3315 line
3316 foobar -x -- -y
3318 the `-x' is considered an option, the `-y' is considered
3320 an argument, and the `--' is considered to be neither.
3321 -A pat Do not complete options after the first non-option argu‐
3323 ment on the line. pat is a pattern matching all strings
3324 which are not to be taken as arguments. For example, to
3325 make _arguments stop completing options after the first
3326 normal argument, but ignoring all strings starting with a
3327 hyphen even if they are not described by one of the opt‐
3328 specs, the form is `-A "-*"'.
3329 -O name
3331 Pass the elements of the array name as arguments to func‐
3332 tions called to execute actions. This is discussed in
3333 detail below.
3334 -M matchspec
3336 Use the match specification matchspec for completing
3337 option names and values. The default matchspec allows
3338 partial word completion after `_' and `-', such as com‐
3339 pleting `-f-b' to `-foo-bar'. The default matchspec is:
3340 r:|[_-]=* r:|=*
3341 specs: overview
3343 Each of the following forms is a spec describing individual sets
3345 of options or arguments on the command line being analyzed.
3346 n:message:action
3348 n::message:action
3349 This describes the n'th normal argument. The message
3350 will be printed above the matches generated and the
3351 action indicates what can be completed in this position
3352 (see below). If there are two colons before the message
3353 the argument is optional. If the message contains only
3354 white space, nothing will be printed above the matches
3355 unless the action adds an explanation string itself.
3356 :message:action
3358 ::message:action
3359 Similar, but describes the next argument, whatever number
3360 that happens to be. If all arguments are specified in
3361 this form in the correct order the numbers are unneces‐
3362 sary.
3363 *:message:action
3365 *::message:action
3366 *:::message:action
3367 This describes how arguments (usually non-option argu‐
3368 ments, those not beginning with - or +) are to be com‐
3369 pleted when neither of the first two forms was provided.
3370 Any number of arguments can be completed in this fashion.
3371 With two colons before the message, the words special
3373 array and the CURRENT special parameter are modified to
3374 refer only to the normal arguments when the action is
3375 executed or evaluated. With three colons before the mes‐
3376 sage they are modified to refer only to the normal argu‐
3377 ments covered by this description.
3378 optspec
3380 optspec:...
3381 This describes an option. The colon indicates handling
3382 for one or more arguments to the option; if it is not
3383 present, the option is assumed to take no arguments.
3384 The following forms are available for the initial opt‐
3386 spec, whether or not the option has arguments.
3387 *optspec
3389 Here optspec is one of the remaining forms below.
3390 This indicates the following optspec may be
3391 repeated. Otherwise if the corresponding option
3392 is already present on the command line to the left
3393 of the cursor it will not be offered again.
3394 -optname
3396 +optname
3397 In the simplest form the optspec is just the
3398 option name beginning with a minus or a plus sign,
3399 such as `-foo'. The first argument for the option
3400 (if any) must follow as a separate word directly
3401 after the option.
3402 Either of `-+optname' and `+-optname' can be used
3404 to specify that -optname and +optname are both
3405 valid.
3406 In all the remaining forms, the leading `-' may be
3408 replaced by or paired with `+' in this way.
3409 -optname-
3411 The first argument of the option must come
3412 directly after the option name in the same word.
3413 For example, `-foo-:...' specifies that the com‐
3414 pleted option and argument will look like
3415 `-fooarg'.
3416 -optname+
3418 The first argument may appear immediately after
3419 optname in the same word, or may appear as a sepa‐
3420 rate word after the option. For example,
3421 `-foo+:...' specifies that the completed option
3422 and argument will look like either `-fooarg' or
3423 `-foo arg'.
3424 -optname=
3426 The argument may appear as the next word, or in
3427 same word as the option name provided that it is
3428 separated from it by an equals sign, for example
3429 `-foo=arg' or `-foo arg'.
3430 -optname=-
3432 The argument to the option must appear after an
3433 equals sign in the same word, and may not be given
3434 in the next argument.
3435 optspec[explanation]
3437 An explanation string may be appended to any of
3438 the preceding forms of optspec by enclosing it in
3439 brackets, as in `-q[query operation]'.
3440 The verbose style is used to decide whether the
3442 explanation strings are displayed with the option
3443 in a completion listing.
3444 If no bracketed explanation string is given but
3446 the auto-description style is set and only one
3447 argument is described for this optspec, the value
3448 of the style is displayed, with any appearance of
3449 the sequence `%d' in it replaced by the message of
3450 the first optarg that follows the optspec; see
3451 below.
3452 It is possible for options with a literal `+' or `=' to
3454 appear, but that character must be quoted, for example
3455 `-\+'.
3456 Each optarg following an optspec must take one of the
3458 following forms:
3459 :message:action
3461 ::message:action
3462 An argument to the option; message and action are
3463 treated as for ordinary arguments. In the first
3464 form, the argument is mandatory, and in the second
3465 form it is optional.
3466 This group may be repeated for options which take
3468 multiple arguments. In other words, :mes‐
3469 sage1:action1:message2:action2 specifies that the
3470 option takes two arguments.
3471 :*pattern:message:action
3473 :*pattern::message:action
3474 :*pattern:::message:action
3475 This describes multiple arguments. Only the last
3476 optarg for an option taking multiple arguments may
3477 be given in this form. If the pattern is empty
3478 (i.e. :*:), all the remaining words on the line
3479 are to be completed as described by the action;
3480 otherwise, all the words up to and including a
3481 word matching the pattern are to be completed
3482 using the action.
3483 Multiple colons are treated as for the `*:...'
3485 forms for ordinary arguments: when the message is
3486 preceded by two colons, the words special array
3487 and the CURRENT special parameter are modified
3488 during the execution or evaluation of the action
3489 to refer only to the words after the option. When
3490 preceded by three colons, they are modified to
3491 refer only to the words covered by this descrip‐
3492 tion.
3493 Any literal colon in an optname, message, or action must be pre‐
3495 ceded by a backslash, `\:'.
3496 Each of the forms above may be preceded by a list in parentheses
3498 of option names and argument numbers. If the given option is on
3499 the command line, the options and arguments indicated in paren‐
3500 theses will not be offered. For example, `(-two -three
3501 1)-one:...' completes the option `-one'; if this appears on the
3502 command line, the options -two and -three and the first ordinary
3503 argument will not be completed after it. `(-foo):...' specifies
3504 an ordinary argument completion; -foo will not be completed if
3505 that argument is already present.
3506 Other items may appear in the list of excluded options to indi‐
3508 cate various other items that should not be applied when the
3509 current specification is matched: a single star (*) for the rest
3510 arguments (i.e. a specification of the form `*:...'); a colon
3511 (:) for all normal (non-option-) arguments; and a hyphen (-) for
3512 all options. For example, if `(*)' appears before an option and
3513 the option appears on the command line, the list of remaining
3514 arguments (those shown in the above table beginning with `*:')
3515 will not be completed.
3516 To aid in reuse of specifications, it is possible to precede any
3518 of the forms above with `!'; then the form will no longer be
3519 completed, although if the option or argument appears on the
3520 command line they will be skipped as normal. The main use for
3521 this is when the arguments are given by an array, and _arguments
3522 is called repeatedly for more specific contexts: on the first
3523 call `_arguments $global_options' is used, and on subsequent
3524 calls `_arguments !$^global_options'.
3525 specs: actions
3527 In each of the forms above the action determines how completions
3529 should be generated. Except for the `->string' form below, the
3530 action will be executed by calling the _all_labels function to
3531 process all tag labels. No special handling of tags is needed
3532 unless a function call introduces a new one.
3533 The functions called to execute actions will be called with the
3535 elements of the array named by the `-O name' option as argu‐
3536 ments. This can be used, for example, to pass the same set of
3537 options for the compadd builtin to all actions.
3538 The forms for action are as follows.
3540 (single unquoted space)
3542 This is useful where an argument is required but it is
3543 not possible or desirable to generate matches for it.
3544 The message will be displayed but no completions listed.
3545 Note that even in this case the colon at the end of the
3546 message is needed; it may only be omitted when neither a
3547 message nor an action is given.
3548 (item1 item2 ...)
3550 One of a list of possible matches, for example:
3551 :foo:(foo bar baz)
3553 ((item1\:desc1 ...))
3555 Similar to the above, but with descriptions for each pos‐
3556 sible match. Note the backslash before the colon. For
3557 example,
3558 :foo:((a\:bar b\:baz))
3560 The matches will be listed together with their descrip‐
3562 tions if the description style is set with the values tag
3563 in the context.
3564 ->string
3566 In this form, _arguments processes the arguments and
3567 options and then returns control to the calling function
3568 with parameters set to indicate the state of processing;
3569 the calling function then makes its own arrangements for
3570 generating completions. For example, functions that
3571 implement a state machine can use this type of action.
3572 Where _arguments encounters action in the `->string' for‐
3574 mat, it will strip all leading and trailing whitespace
3575 from string and set the array state to the set of all
3576 strings for which an action is to be performed. The ele‐
3577 ments of the array state_descr are assigned the corre‐
3578 sponding message field from each optarg containing such
3579 an action.
3580 By default and in common with all other well behaved com‐
3582 pletion functions, _arguments returns status zero if it
3583 was able to add matches and non-zero otherwise. However,
3584 if the -R option is given, _arguments will instead return
3585 a status of 300 to indicate that $state is to be handled.
3586 In addition to $state and $state_descr, _arguments also
3588 sets the global parameters `context', `line' and
3589 `opt_args' as described below, and does not reset any
3590 changes made to the special parameters such as PREFIX and
3591 words. This gives the calling function the choice of
3592 resetting these parameters or propagating changes in
3593 them.
3594 A function calling _arguments with at least one action
3596 containing a `->string' must therefore declare appropri‐
3597 ate local parameters:
3598 local context state state_descr line
3600 typeset -A opt_args
3601 to prevent _arguments from altering the global environ‐
3603 ment.
3604 {eval-string}
3606 A string in braces is evaluated as shell code to generate
3607 matches. If the eval-string itself does not begin with
3608 an opening parenthesis or brace it is split into separate
3609 words before execution.
3610 = action
3612 If the action starts with `= ' (an equals sign followed
3613 by a space), _arguments will insert the contents of the
3614 argument field of the current context as the new first
3615 element in the words special array and increment the
3616 value of the CURRENT special parameter. This has the
3617 effect of inserting a dummy word onto the completion com‐
3618 mand line while not changing the point at which comple‐
3619 tion is taking place.
3620 This is most useful with one of the specifiers that
3622 restrict the words on the command line on which the
3623 action is to operate (the two- and three-colon forms
3624 above). One particular use is when an action itself
3625 causes _arguments on a restricted range; it is necessary
3626 to use this trick to insert an appropriate command name
3627 into the range for the second call to _arguments to be
3628 able to parse the line.
3629 word...
3631 word...
3632 This covers all forms other than those above. If the
3633 action starts with a space, the remaining list of words
3634 will be invoked unchanged.
3635 Otherwise it will be invoked with some extra strings
3637 placed after the first word; these are to be passed down
3638 as options to the compadd builtin. They ensure that the
3639 state specified by _arguments, in particular the descrip‐
3640 tions of options and arguments, is correctly passed to
3641 the completion command. These additional arguments are
3642 taken from the array parameter `expl'; this will be set
3643 up before executing the action and hence may be referred
3644 to inside it, typically in an expansion of the form
3645 `$expl[@]' which preserves empty elements of the array.
3646 During the performance of the action the array `line' will be
3648 set to the normal arguments from the command line, i.e. the
3649 words from the command line after the command name excluding all
3650 options and their arguments. Options are stored in the associa‐
3651 tive array `opt_args' with option names as keys and their argu‐
3652 ments as the values. For options that have more than one argu‐
3653 ment these are given as one string, separated by colons. All
3654 colons and backslashes in the original arguments are preceded
3655 with backslashes.
3656 The parameter `context' is set when returning to the calling
3658 function to perform an action of the form `->string'. It is set
3659 to an array of elements corresponding to the elements of $state.
3660 Each element is a suitable name for the argument field of the
3661 context: either a string of the form `option-opt-n' for the n'th
3662 argument of the option -opt, or a string of the form `argu‐
3663 ment-n' for the n'th argument. For `rest' arguments, that is
3664 those in the list at the end not handled by position, n is the
3665 string `rest'. For example, when completing the argument of the
3666 -o option, the name is `option-o-1', while for the second normal
3667 (non-option-) argument it is `argument-2'.
3668 Furthermore, during the evaluation of the action the context
3670 name in the curcontext parameter is altered to append the same
3671 string that is stored in the context parameter.
3672 The option -C tells _arguments to modify the curcontext parame‐
3674 ter for an action of the form `->state'. This is the standard
3675 parameter used to keep track of the current context. Here it
3676 (and not the context array) should be made local to the calling
3677 function to avoid passing back the modified value and should be
3678 initialised to the current value at the start of the function:
3679 local curcontext="$curcontext"
3681 This is useful where it is not possible for multiple states to
3683 be valid together.
3684 Grouping Options
3686 Options can be grouped to simplify exclusion lists. A group is
3688 introduced with `+' followed by a name for the group in the sub‐
3689 sequent word. Whole groups can then be referenced in an exclu‐
3690 sion list or a group name can be used to disambiguate between
3691 two forms of the same option. For example:
3692 _arguments \
3694 '(group2--x)-a' \
3695 + group1 \
3696 -m \
3697 '(group2)-n' \
3698 + group2 \
3699 -x -y
3700 If the name of a group is specified in the form `(name)' then
3702 only one value from that group will ever be completed; more for‐
3703 mally, all specifications are mutually exclusive to all other
3704 specifications in that group. This is useful for defining
3705 options that are aliases for each other. For example:
3706 _arguments \
3708 -a -b \
3709 + '(operation)' \
3710 {-c,--compress}'[compress]' \
3711 {-d,--decompress}'[decompress]' \
3712 {-l,--list}'[list]'
3713 If an option in a group appears on the command line, it is
3715 stored in the associative array `opt_args' with 'group-option'
3716 as a key. In the example above, a key `operation--c' is used if
3717 the option `-c' is present on the command line.
3718 Specifying Multiple Sets of Arguments
3720 It is possible to specify multiple sets of options and arguments
3722 with the sets separated by single hyphens. This differs from
3723 groups in that sets are considered to be mutually exclusive of
3724 each other.
3725 Specifications before the first set and from any group are com‐
3727 mon to all sets. For example:
3728 _arguments \
3730 -a \
3731 - set1 \
3732 -c \
3733 - set2 \
3734 -d \
3735 ':arg:(x2 y2)'
3736 This defines two sets. When the command line contains the
3738 option `-c', the `-d' option and the argument will not be con‐
3739 sidered possible completions. When it contains `-d' or an argu‐
3740 ment, the option `-c' will not be considered. However, after
3741 `-a' both sets will still be considered valid.
3742 As for groups, the name of a set may appear in exclusion lists,
3744 either alone or preceding a normal option or argument specifica‐
3745 tion.
3746 The completion code has to parse the command line separately for
3748 each set. This can be slow so sets should only be used when nec‐
3749 essary. A useful alternative is often an option specification
3750 with rest-arguments (as in `-foo:*:...'); here the option -foo
3751 swallows up all remaining arguments as described by the optarg
3752 definitions.
3753 Deriving spec forms from the help output
3755 The option `--' allows _arguments to work out the names of long
3757 options that support the `--help' option which is standard in
3758 many GNU commands. The command word is called with the argument
3759 `--help' and the output examined for option names. Clearly, it
3760 can be dangerous to pass this to commands which may not support
3761 this option as the behaviour of the command is unspecified.
3762 In addition to options, `_arguments --' will try to deduce the
3764 types of arguments available for options when the form
3765 `--opt=val' is valid. It is also possible to provide hints by
3766 examining the help text of the command and adding helpspec of
3767 the form `pattern:message:action'; note that other _arguments
3768 spec forms are not used. The pattern is matched against the
3769 help text for an option, and if it matches the message and
3770 action are used as for other argument specifiers. The special
3771 case of `*:' means both message and action are empty, which has
3772 the effect of causing options having no description in the help
3773 output to be ordered in listings ahead of options that have a
3774 description.
3775 For example:
3777 _arguments -- '*\*:toggle:(yes no)' \
3779 '*=FILE*:file:_files' \
3780 '*=DIR*:directory:_files -/' \
3781 '*=PATH*:directory:_files -/'
3782 Here, `yes' and `no' will be completed as the argument of
3784 options whose description ends in a star; file names will be
3785 completed for options that contain the substring `=FILE' in the
3786 description; and directories will be completed for options whose
3787 description contains `=DIR' or `=PATH'. The last three are in
3788 fact the default and so need not be given explicitly, although
3789 it is possible to override the use of these patterns. A typical
3790 help text which uses this feature is:
3791 -C, --directory=DIR change to directory DIR
3793 so that the above specifications will cause directories to be
3795 completed after `--directory', though not after `-C'.
3796 Note also that _arguments tries to find out automatically if the
3798 argument for an option is optional. This can be specified
3799 explicitly by doubling the colon before the message.
3800 If the pattern ends in `(-)', this will be removed from the pat‐
3802 tern and the action will be used only directly after the `=',
3803 not in the next word. This is the behaviour of a normal speci‐
3804 fication defined with the form `=-'.
3805 By default, the command (with the option `--help') is run after
3807 resetting all the locale categories (except for LC_CTYPE) to
3808 `C'. If the localized help output is known to work, the option
3809 `-l' can be specified after the `_arguments --' so that the com‐
3810 mand is run in the current locale.
3811 The `_arguments --' can be followed by the option `-i patterns'
3813 to give patterns for options which are not to be completed. The
3814 patterns can be given as the name of an array parameter or as a
3815 literal list in parentheses. For example,
3816 _arguments -- -i \
3818 "(--(en|dis)able-FEATURE*)"
3819 will cause completion to ignore the options `--enable-FEATURE'
3821 and `--disable-FEATURE' (this example is useful with GNU config‐
3822 ure).
3823 The `_arguments --' form can also be followed by the option `-s
3825 pair' to describe option aliases. The pair consists of a list
3826 of alternating patterns and corresponding replacements, enclosed
3827 in parens and quoted so that it forms a single argument word in
3828 the _arguments call.
3829 For example, some configure-script help output describes options
3831 only as `--enable-foo', but the script also accepts the negated
3832 form `--disable-foo'. To allow completion of the second form:
3833 _arguments -- -s "((#s)--enable- --disable-)"
3835 Miscellaneous notes
3837 Finally, note that _arguments generally expects to be the pri‐
3839 mary function handling any completion for which it is used. It
3840 may have side effects which change the treatment of any matches
3841 added by other functions called after it. To combine _arguments
3842 with other functions, those functions should be called either
3843 before _arguments, as an action within a spec, or in handlers
3844 for `->state' actions.
3845 Here is a more general example of the use of _arguments:
3847 _arguments '-l+:left border:' \
3849 '-format:paper size:(letter A4)' \
3850 '*-copy:output file:_files::resolution:(300 600)' \
3851 ':postscript file:_files -g \*.\(ps\|eps\)' \
3852 '*:page number:'
3853 This describes three options: `-l', `-format', and `-copy'. The
3855 first takes one argument described as `left border' for which no
3856 completion will be offered because of the empty action. Its
3857 argument may come directly after the `-l' or it may be given as
3858 the next word on the line.
3859 The `-format' option takes one argument in the next word,
3861 described as `paper size' for which only the strings `letter'
3862 and `A4' will be completed.
3863 The `-copy' option may appear more than once on the command line
3865 and takes two arguments. The first is mandatory and will be
3866 completed as a filename. The second is optional (because of the
3867 second colon before the description `resolution') and will be
3868 completed from the strings `300' and `600'.
3869 The last two descriptions say what should be completed as argu‐
3871 ments. The first describes the first argument as a `postscript
3872 file' and makes files ending in `ps' or `eps' be completed. The
3873 last description gives all other arguments the description `page
3874 numbers' but does not offer completions.
3875 _cache_invalid cache_identifier
3877 This function returns status zero if the completions cache cor‐
3878 responding to the given cache identifier needs rebuilding. It
3879 determines this by looking up the cache-policy style for the
3880 current context. This should provide a function name which is
3881 run with the full path to the relevant cache file as the only
3882 argument.
3883 Example:
3885 _example_caching_policy () {
3887 # rebuild if cache is more than a week old
3888 local -a oldp
3889 oldp=( "$1"(Nm+7) )
3890 (( $#oldp ))
3891 }
3892 _call_function return name [ arg ... ]
3894 If a function name exists, it is called with the arguments args.
3895 The return argument gives the name of a parameter in which the
3896 return status from the function name should be stored; if return
3897 is empty or a single hyphen it is ignored.
3898 The return status of _call_function itself is zero if the func‐
3900 tion name exists and was called and non-zero otherwise.
3901 _call_program [ -l ] [ -p ] tag string ...
3903 This function provides a mechanism for the user to override the
3904 use of an external command. It looks up the command style with
3905 the supplied tag. If the style is set, its value is used as the
3906 command to execute. The strings from the call to _call_program,
3907 or from the style if set, are concatenated with spaces between
3908 them and the resulting string is evaluated. The return status
3909 is the return status of the command called.
3910 By default, the command is run in an environment where all the
3912 locale categories (except for LC_CTYPE) are reset to `C' by
3913 calling the utility function _comp_locale (see below). If the
3914 option `-l' is given, the command is run with the current
3915 locale.
3916 If the option `-p' is supplied it indicates that the command
3918 output is influenced by the permissions it is run with. If the
3919 gain-privileges style is set to true, _call_program will make
3920 use of commands such as sudo, if present on the command-line, to
3921 match the permissions to whatever the final command is likely to
3922 run under. When looking up the gain-privileges and command
3923 styles, the command component of the zstyle context will end
3924 with a slash (`/') followed by the command that would be used to
3925 gain privileges.
3926 _combination [ -s pattern ] tag style spec ... field opts ...
3928 This function is used to complete combinations of values, for
3929 example pairs of hostnames and usernames. The style argument
3930 gives the style which defines the pairs; it is looked up in a
3931 context with the tag specified.
3932 The style name consists of field names separated by hyphens, for
3934 example `users-hosts-ports'. For each field for a value is
3935 already known, a spec of the form `field=pattern' is given. For
3936 example, if the command line so far specifies a user `pws', the
3937 argument `users=pws' should appear.
3938 The next argument with no equals sign is taken as the name of
3940 the field for which completions should be generated (presumably
3941 not one of the fields for which the value is known).
3942 The matches generated will be taken from the value of the style.
3944 These should contain the possible values for the combinations in
3945 the appropriate order (users, hosts, ports in the example
3946 above). The values for the different fields are separated by
3947 colons. This can be altered with the option -s to _combination
3948 which specifies a pattern. Typically this is a character class,
3949 as for example `-s "[:@]"' in the case of the users-hosts style.
3950 Each `field=pattern' specification restricts the completions
3951 which apply to elements of the style with appropriately matching
3952 fields.
3953 If no style with the given name is defined for the given tag, or
3955 if none of the strings in style's value match, but a function
3956 name of the required field preceded by an underscore is defined,
3957 that function will be called to generate the matches. For exam‐
3958 ple, if there is no `users-hosts-ports' or no matching hostname
3959 when a host is required, the function `_hosts' will automati‐
3960 cally be called.
3961 If the same name is used for more than one field, in both the
3963 `field=pattern' and the argument that gives the name of the
3964 field to be completed, the number of the field (starting with
3965 one) may be given after the fieldname, separated from it by a
3966 colon.
3967 All arguments after the required field name are passed to com‐
3969 padd when generating matches from the style value, or to the
3970 functions for the fields if they are called.
3971 _command_names [ -e | - ]
3973 This function completes words that are valid at command posi‐
3974 tion: names of aliases, builtins, hashed commands, functions,
3975 and so on. With the -e flag, only hashed commands are com‐
3976 pleted. The - flag is ignored.
3977 _comp_locale
3979 This function resets all the locale categories other than
3980 LC_CTYPE to `C' so that the output from external commands can be
3981 easily analyzed by the completion system. LC_CTYPE retains the
3982 current value (taking LC_ALL and LANG into account), ensuring
3983 that non-ASCII characters in file names are still handled prop‐
3984 erly.
3985 This function should normally be run only in a subshell, because
3987 the new locale is exported to the environment. Typical usage
3988 would be `$(_comp_locale; command ...)'.
3989 _completers [ -p ]
3991 This function completes names of completers.
3992 -p Include the leading underscore (`_') in the matches.
3994 _describe [-12JVx] [ -oO | -t tag ] descr name1 [ name2 ] [ opt ... ]
3997 [ -- name1 [ name2 ] [ opt ... ] ... ]
3998 This function associates completions with descriptions. Multi‐
3999 ple groups separated by -- can be supplied, potentially with
4000 different completion options opts.
4001 The descr is taken as a string to display above the matches if
4003 the format style for the descriptions tag is set. This is fol‐
4004 lowed by one or two names of arrays followed by options to pass
4005 to compadd. The array name1 contains the possible completions
4006 with their descriptions in the form `completion:description'.
4007 Any literal colons in completion must be quoted with a back‐
4008 slash. If a name2 is given, it should have the same number of
4009 elements as name1; in this case the corresponding elements are
4010 added as possible completions instead of the completion strings
4011 from name1. The completion list will retain the descriptions
4012 from name1. Finally, a set of completion options can appear.
4013 If the option `-o' appears before the first argument, the
4015 matches added will be treated as names of command options (N.B.
4016 not shell options), typically following a `-', `--' or `+' on
4017 the command line. In this case _describe uses the prefix-hid‐
4018 den, prefix-needed and verbose styles to find out if the strings
4019 should be added as completions and if the descriptions should be
4020 shown. Without the `-o' option, only the verbose style is used
4021 to decide how descriptions are shown. If `-O' is used instead
4022 of `-o', command options are completed as above but _describe
4023 will not handle the prefix-needed style.
4024 With the -t option a tag can be specified. The default is `val‐
4026 ues' or, if the -o option is given, `options'.
4027 The options -1, -2, -J, -V, -x are passed to _next_label.
4029 If selected by the list-grouped style, strings with the same
4031 description will appear together in the list.
4032 _describe uses the _all_labels function to generate the matches,
4034 so it does not need to appear inside a loop over tag labels.
4035 _description [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ spec ... ]
4037 This function is not to be confused with the previous one; it is
4038 used as a helper function for creating options to compadd. It
4039 is buried inside many of the higher level completion functions
4040 and so often does not need to be called directly.
4041 The styles listed below are tested in the current context using
4043 the given tag. The resulting options for compadd are put into
4044 the array named name (this is traditionally `expl', but this
4045 convention is not enforced). The description for the corre‐
4046 sponding set of matches is passed to the function in descr.
4047 The styles tested are: format, hidden, matcher, ignored-patterns
4049 and group-name. The format style is first tested for the given
4050 tag and then for the descriptions tag if no value was found,
4051 while the remainder are only tested for the tag given as the
4052 first argument. The function also calls _setup which tests some
4053 more styles.
4054 The string returned by the format style (if any) will be modi‐
4056 fied so that the sequence `%d' is replaced by the descr given as
4057 the third argument without any leading or trailing white space.
4058 If, after removing the white space, the descr is the empty
4059 string, the format style will not be used and the options put
4060 into the name array will not contain an explanation string to be
4061 displayed above the matches.
4062 If _description is called with more than three arguments, the
4064 additional specs should be of the form `char:str'. These supply
4065 escape sequence replacements for the format style: every appear‐
4066 ance of `%char' will be replaced by string.
4067 If the -x option is given, the description will be passed to
4069 compadd using the -x option instead of the default -X. This
4070 means that the description will be displayed even if there are
4071 no corresponding matches.
4072 The options placed in the array name take account of the
4074 group-name style, so matches are placed in a separate group
4075 where necessary. The group normally has its elements sorted (by
4076 passing the option -J to compadd), but if an option starting
4077 with `-V', `-J', `-1', or `-2' is passed to _description, that
4078 option will be included in the array. Hence it is possible for
4079 the completion group to be unsorted by giving the option `-V',
4080 `-1V', or `-2V'.
4081 In most cases, the function will be used like this:
4083 local expl
4085 _description files expl file
4086 compadd "$expl[@]" - "$files[@]"
4087 Note the use of the parameter expl, the hyphen, and the list of
4089 matches. Almost all calls to compadd within the completion sys‐
4090 tem use a similar format; this ensures that user-specified
4091 styles are correctly passed down to the builtins which implement
4092 the internals of completion.
4093 _dir_list [ -s sep ] [ -S ]
4095 Complete a list of directory names separated by colons (the same
4096 format as $PATH).
4097 -s sep Use sep as separator between items. sep defaults to a
4099 colon (`:').
4100 -S Add sep instead of slash (`/') as an autoremoveable suf‐
4102 fix.
4103 _dispatch context string ...
4105 This sets the current context to context and looks for comple‐
4106 tion functions to handle this context by hunting through the
4107 list of command names or special contexts (as described above
4108 for compdef) given as strings. The first completion function to
4109 be defined for one of the contexts in the list is used to gener‐
4110 ate matches. Typically, the last string is -default- to cause
4111 the function for default completion to be used as a fallback.
4112 The function sets the parameter $service to the string being
4114 tried, and sets the context/command field (the fourth) of the
4115 $curcontext parameter to the context given as the first argu‐
4116 ment.
4117 _email_addresses [ -c ] [ -n plugin ]
4119 Complete email addresses. Addresses are provided by plugins.
4120 -c Complete bare localhost@domain.tld addresses, without a
4122 name part or a comment. Without this option, RFC822
4123 `Firstname Lastname <address>' strings are completed.
4124 -n plugin
4126 Complete aliases from plugin.
4127 The following plugins are available by default: _email-ldap (see
4129 the filter style), _email-local (completes user@hostname Unix
4130 addresses), _email-mail (completes aliases from ~/.mailrc),
4131 _email-mush, _email-mutt, and _email-pine.
4132 Addresses from the _email-foo plugin are added under the tag
4134 `email-foo'.
4135 Writing plugins
4137 Plugins are written as separate functions with names starting
4139 with `_email-'. They are invoked with the -c option and compadd
4140 options. They should either do their own completion or set the
4141 $reply array to a list of `alias:address' elements and return
4142 300. New plugins will be picked up and run automatically.
4143 _files The function _files calls _path_files with all the arguments it
4145 was passed except for -g and -/. The use of these two options
4146 depends on the setting of the file-patterns style.
4147 This function accepts the full set of options allowed by
4149 _path_files, described below.
4150 _gnu_generic
4152 This function is a simple wrapper around the _arguments function
4153 described above. It can be used to determine automatically the
4154 long options understood by commands that produce a list when
4155 passed the option `--help'. It is intended to be used as a
4156 top-level completion function in its own right. For example, to
4157 enable option completion for the commands foo and bar, use
4158 compdef _gnu_generic foo bar
4160 after the call to compinit.
4162 The completion system as supplied is conservative in its use of
4164 this function, since it is important to be sure the command
4165 understands the option `--help'.
4166 _guard [ options ] pattern descr
4168 This function displays descr if pattern matches the string to be
4169 completed. It is intended to be used in the action for the
4170 specifications passed to _arguments and similar functions.
4171 The return status is zero if the message was displayed and the
4173 word to complete is not empty, and non-zero otherwise.
4174 The pattern may be preceded by any of the options understood by
4176 compadd that are passed down from _description, namely -M, -J,
4177 -V, -1, -2, -n, -F and -X. All of these options will be
4178 ignored. This fits in conveniently with the argument-passing
4179 conventions of actions for _arguments.
4180 As an example, consider a command taking the options -n and
4182 -none, where -n must be followed by a numeric value in the same
4183 word. By using:
4184 _arguments '-n-: :_guard "[0-9]#" "numeric value"' '-none'
4186 _arguments can be made to both display the message `numeric
4188 value' and complete options after `-n<TAB>'. If the `-n' is
4189 already followed by one or more digits (the pattern passed to
4190 _guard) only the message will be displayed; if the `-n' is fol‐
4191 lowed by another character, only options are completed.
4192 _message [ -r12 ] [ -VJ group ] descr
4194 _message -e [ tag ] descr
4195 The descr is used in the same way as the third argument to the
4196 _description function, except that the resulting string will
4197 always be shown whether or not matches were generated. This is
4198 useful for displaying a help message in places where no comple‐
4199 tions can be generated.
4200 The format style is examined with the messages tag to find a
4202 message; the usual tag, descriptions, is used only if the style
4203 is not set with the former.
4204 If the -r option is given, no style is used; the descr is taken
4206 literally as the string to display. This is most useful when
4207 the descr comes from a pre-processed argument list which already
4208 contains an expanded description.
4209 The -12VJ options and the group are passed to compadd and hence
4211 determine the group the message string is added to.
4212 The second -e form gives a description for completions with the
4214 tag tag to be shown even if there are no matches for that tag.
4215 This form is called by _arguments in the event that there is no
4216 action for an option specification. The tag can be omitted and
4217 if so the tag is taken from the parameter $curtag; this is main‐
4218 tained by the completion system and so is usually correct. Note
4219 that if there are no matches at the time this function is
4220 called, compstate[insert] is cleared, so additional matches gen‐
4221 erated later are not inserted on the command line.
4222 _multi_parts [ -i ] sep array
4224 The argument sep is a separator character. The array may be
4225 either the name of an array parameter or a literal array in the
4226 form `(foo bar)', a parenthesised list of words separated by
4227 whitespace. The possible completions are the strings from the
4228 array. However, each chunk delimited by sep will be completed
4229 separately. For example, the _tar function uses `_multi_parts /
4230 patharray' to complete partial file paths from the given array
4231 of complete file paths.
4232 The -i option causes _multi_parts to insert a unique match even
4234 if that requires multiple separators to be inserted. This is
4235 not usually the expected behaviour with filenames, but certain
4236 other types of completion, for example those with a fixed set of
4237 possibilities, may be more suited to this form.
4238 Like other utility functions, this function accepts the `-V',
4240 `-J', `-1', `-2', `-n', `-f', `-X', `-M', `-P', `-S', `-r',
4241 `-R', and `-q' options and passes them to the compadd builtin.
4242 _next_label [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ option ... ]
4244 This function is used to implement the loop over different tag
4245 labels for a particular tag as described above for the tag-order
4246 style. On each call it checks to see if there are any more tag
4247 labels; if there is it returns status zero, otherwise non-zero.
4248 As this function requires a current tag to be set, it must
4249 always follow a call to _tags or _requested.
4250 The -x12VJ options and the first three arguments are passed to
4252 the _description function. Where appropriate the tag will be
4253 replaced by a tag label in this call. Any description given in
4254 the tag-order style is preferred to the descr passed to
4255 _next_label.
4256 The options given after the descr are set in the parameter given
4258 by name, and hence are to be passed to compadd or whatever func‐
4259 tion is called to add the matches.
4260 Here is a typical use of this function for the tag foo. The
4262 call to _requested determines if tag foo is required at all; the
4263 loop over _next_label handles any labels defined for the tag in
4264 the tag-order style.
4265 local expl ret=1
4267 ...
4268 if _requested foo; then
4269 ...
4270 while _next_label foo expl '...'; do
4271 compadd "$expl[@]" ... && ret=0
4272 done
4273 ...
4274 fi
4275 return ret
4276 _normal
4278 This is the standard function called to handle completion out‐
4279 side any special -context-. It is called both to complete the
4280 command word and also the arguments for a command. In the sec‐
4281 ond case, _normal looks for a special completion for that com‐
4282 mand, and if there is none it uses the completion for the
4283 -default- context.
4284 A second use is to reexamine the command line specified by the
4286 $words array and the $CURRENT parameter after those have been
4287 modified. For example, the function _precommand, which com‐
4288 pletes after pre-command specifiers such as nohup, removes the
4289 first word from the words array, decrements the CURRENT parame‐
4290 ter, then calls _normal again. The effect is that `nohup cmd
4291 ...' is treated in the same way as `cmd ...'.
4292 If the command name matches one of the patterns given by one of
4294 the options -p or -P to compdef, the corresponding completion
4295 function is called and then the parameter _compskip is checked.
4296 If it is set completion is terminated at that point even if no
4297 matches have been found. This is the same effect as in the
4298 -first- context.
4299 _options
4301 This can be used to complete the names of shell options. It
4302 provides a matcher specification that ignores a leading `no',
4303 ignores underscores and allows upper-case letters to match their
4304 lower-case counterparts (for example, `glob', `noglob',
4305 `NO_GLOB' are all completed). Any arguments are propagated to
4306 the compadd builtin.
4307 _options_set and _options_unset
4309 These functions complete only set or unset options, with the
4310 same matching specification used in the _options function.
4311 Note that you need to uncomment a few lines in the _main_com‐
4313 plete function for these functions to work properly. The lines
4314 in question are used to store the option settings in effect
4315 before the completion widget locally sets the options it needs.
4316 Hence these functions are not generally used by the completion
4317 system.
4318 _parameters
4320 This is used to complete the names of shell parameters.
4321 The option `-g pattern' limits the completion to parameters
4323 whose type matches the pattern. The type of a parameter is that
4324 shown by `print ${(t)param}', hence judicious use of `*' in pat‐
4325 tern is probably necessary.
4326 All other arguments are passed to the compadd builtin.
4328 _path_files
4330 This function is used throughout the completion system to com‐
4331 plete filenames. It allows completion of partial paths. For
4332 example, the string `/u/i/s/sig' may be completed to
4333 `/usr/include/sys/signal.h'.
4334 The options accepted by both _path_files and _files are:
4336 -f Complete all filenames. This is the default.
4338 -/ Specifies that only directories should be completed.
4340 -g pattern
4342 Specifies that only files matching the pattern should be
4343 completed.
4344 -W paths
4346 Specifies path prefixes that are to be prepended to the
4347 string from the command line to generate the filenames
4348 but that should not be inserted as completions nor shown
4349 in completion listings. Here, paths may be the name of
4350 an array parameter, a literal list of paths enclosed in
4351 parentheses or an absolute pathname.
4352 -F ignored-files
4354 This behaves as for the corresponding option to the com‐
4355 padd builtin. It gives direct control over which file‐
4356 names should be ignored. If the option is not present,
4357 the ignored-patterns style is used.
4358 Both _path_files and _files also accept the following options
4360 which are passed to compadd: `-J', `-V', `-1', `-2', `-n', `-X',
4361 `-M', `-P', `-S', `-q', `-r', and `-R'.
4362 Finally, the _path_files function uses the styles expand,
4364 ambiguous, special-dirs, list-suffixes and file-sort described
4365 above.
4366 _pick_variant [ -b builtin-label ] [ -c command ] [ -r name ]
4369 label=pattern ... label [ arg ... ]
4370 This function is used to resolve situations where a single com‐
4371 mand name requires more than one type of handling, either
4372 because it has more than one variant or because there is a name
4373 clash between two different commands.
4374 The command to run is taken from the first element of the array
4376 words unless this is overridden by the option -c. This command
4377 is run and its output is compared with a series of patterns.
4378 Arguments to be passed to the command can be specified at the
4379 end after all the other arguments. The patterns to try in order
4380 are given by the arguments label=pattern; if the output of `com‐
4381 mand arg ...' contains pattern, then label is selected as the
4382 label for the command variant. If none of the patterns match,
4383 the final command label is selected and status 1 is returned.
4384 If the `-b builtin-label' is given, the command is tested to see
4386 if it is provided as a shell builtin, possibly autoloaded; if
4387 so, the label builtin-label is selected as the label for the
4388 variant.
4389 If the `-r name' is given, the label picked is stored in the
4391 parameter named name.
4392 The results are also cached in the _cmd_variant associative
4394 array indexed by the name of the command run.
4395 _regex_arguments name spec ...
4397 This function generates a completion function name which matches
4398 the specifications specs, a set of regular expressions as
4399 described below. After running _regex_arguments, the function
4400 name should be called as a normal completion function. The pat‐
4401 tern to be matched is given by the contents of the words array
4402 up to the current cursor position joined together with null
4403 characters; no quotation is applied.
4404 The arguments are grouped as sets of alternatives separated by
4406 `|', which are tried one after the other until one matches.
4407 Each alternative consists of a one or more specifications which
4408 are tried left to right, with each pattern matched being
4409 stripped in turn from the command line being tested, until all
4410 of the group succeeds or until one fails; in the latter case,
4411 the next alternative is tried. This structure can be repeated
4412 to arbitrary depth by using parentheses; matching proceeds from
4413 inside to outside.
4414 A special procedure is applied if no test succeeds but the
4416 remaining command line string contains no null character (imply‐
4417 ing the remaining word is the one for which completions are to
4418 be generated). The completion target is restricted to the
4419 remaining word and any actions for the corresponding patterns
4420 are executed. In this case, nothing is stripped from the com‐
4421 mand line string. The order of evaluation of the actions can be
4422 determined by the tag-order style; the various formats supported
4423 by _alternative can be used in action. The descr is used for
4424 setting up the array parameter expl.
4425 Specification arguments take one of following forms, in which
4427 metacharacters such as `(', `)', `#' and `|' should be quoted.
4428 /pattern/ [%lookahead%] [-guard] [:tag:descr:action]
4430 This is a single primitive component. The function tests
4431 whether the combined pattern `(#b)((#B)pattern)looka‐
4432 head*' matches the command line string. If so, `guard'
4433 is evaluated and its return status is examined to deter‐
4434 mine if the test has succeeded. The pattern string `[]'
4435 is guaranteed never to match. The lookahead is not
4436 stripped from the command line before the next pattern is
4437 examined.
4438 The argument starting with : is used in the same manner
4440 as an argument to _alternative.
4441 A component is used as follows: pattern is tested to see
4443 if the component already exists on the command line. If
4444 it does, any following specifications are examined to
4445 find something to complete. If a component is reached
4446 but no such pattern exists yet on the command line, the
4447 string containing the action is used to generate matches
4448 to insert at that point.
4449 /pattern/+ [%lookahead%] [-guard] [:tag:descr:action]
4451 This is similar to `/pattern/ ...' but the left part of
4452 the command line string (i.e. the part already matched by
4453 previous patterns) is also considered part of the comple‐
4454 tion target.
4455 /pattern/- [%lookahead%] [-guard] [:tag:descr:action]
4457 This is similar to `/pattern/ ...' but the actions of the
4458 current and previously matched patterns are ignored even
4459 if the following `pattern' matches the empty string.
4460 ( spec )
4462 Parentheses may be used to groups specs; note each paren‐
4463 thesis is a single argument to _regex_arguments.
4464 spec # This allows any number of repetitions of spec.
4466 spec spec
4468 The two specs are to be matched one after the other as
4469 described above.
4470 spec | spec
4472 Either of the two specs can be matched.
4473 The function _regex_words can be used as a helper function to
4475 generate matches for a set of alternative words possibly with
4476 their own arguments as a command line argument.
4477 Examples:
4479 _regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \
4481 /$'[^\0]#\0'/ :'compadd aaa'
4482 This generates a function _tst that completes aaa as its only
4484 argument. The tag and description for the action have been
4485 omitted for brevity (this works but is not recommended in normal
4486 use). The first component matches the command word, which is
4487 arbitrary; the second matches any argument. As the argument is
4488 also arbitrary, any following component would not depend on aaa
4489 being present.
4490 _regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \
4492 /$'aaa\0'/ :'compadd aaa'
4493 This is a more typical use; it is similar, but any following
4495 patterns would only match if aaa was present as the first argu‐
4496 ment.
4497 _regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \( \
4499 /$'aaa\0'/ :'compadd aaa' \
4500 /$'bbb\0'/ :'compadd bbb' \) \#
4501 In this example, an indefinite number of command arguments may
4503 be completed. Odd arguments are completed as aaa and even argu‐
4504 ments as bbb. Completion fails unless the set of aaa and bbb
4505 arguments before the current one is matched correctly.
4506 _regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \
4508 \( /$'aaa\0'/ :'compadd aaa' \| \
4509 /$'bbb\0'/ :'compadd bbb' \) \#
4510 This is similar, but either aaa or bbb may be completed for any
4512 argument. In this case _regex_words could be used to generate a
4513 suitable expression for the arguments.
4514 _regex_words tag description spec ...
4516 This function can be used to generate arguments for the
4517 _regex_arguments command which may be inserted at any point
4518 where a set of rules is expected. The tag and description give
4519 a standard tag and description pertaining to the current con‐
4520 text. Each spec contains two or three arguments separated by a
4521 colon: note that there is no leading colon in this case.
4522 Each spec gives one of a set of words that may be completed at
4524 this point, together with arguments. It is thus roughly equiva‐
4525 lent to the _arguments function when used in normal (non-regex)
4526 completion.
4527 The part of the spec before the first colon is the word to be
4529 completed. This may contain a *; the entire word, before and
4530 after the * is completed, but only the text before the * is
4531 required for the context to be matched, so that further argu‐
4532 ments may be completed after the abbreviated form.
4533 The second part of spec is a description for the word being com‐
4535 pleted.
4536 The optional third part of the spec describes how words follow‐
4538 ing the one being completed are themselves to be completed. It
4539 will be evaluated in order to avoid problems with quoting. This
4540 means that typically it contains a reference to an array con‐
4541 taining previously generated regex arguments.
4542 The option -t term specifies a terminator for the word instead
4544 of the usual space. This is handled as an auto-removable suffix
4545 in the manner of the option -s sep to _values.
4546 The result of the processing by _regex_words is placed in the
4548 array reply, which should be made local to the calling function.
4549 If the set of words and arguments may be matched repeatedly, a #
4550 should be appended to the generated array at that point.
4551 For example:
4553 local -a reply
4555 _regex_words mydb-commands 'mydb commands' \
4556 'add:add an entry to mydb:$mydb_add_cmds' \
4557 'show:show entries in mydb'
4558 _regex_arguments _mydb "$reply[@]"
4559 _mydb "$@"
4560 This shows a completion function for a command mydb which takes
4562 two command arguments, add and show. show takes no arguments,
4563 while the arguments for add have already been prepared in an
4564 array mydb_add_cmds, quite possibly by a previous call to
4565 _regex_words.
4566 _requested [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag [ name descr [ command [ arg ... ] ]
4568 This function is called to decide whether a tag already regis‐
4569 tered by a call to _tags (see below) has been requested by the
4570 user and hence completion should be performed for it. It
4571 returns status zero if the tag is requested and non-zero other‐
4572 wise. The function is typically used as part of a loop over
4573 different tags as follows:
4574 _tags foo bar baz
4576 while _tags; do
4577 if _requested foo; then
4578 ... # perform completion for foo
4579 fi
4580 ... # test the tags bar and baz in the same way
4581 ... # exit loop if matches were generated
4582 done
4583 Note that the test for whether matches were generated is not
4585 performed until the end of the _tags loop. This is so that the
4586 user can set the tag-order style to specify a set of tags to be
4587 completed at the same time.
4588 If name and descr are given, _requested calls the _description
4590 function with these arguments together with the options passed
4591 to _requested.
4592 If command is given, the _all_labels function will be called
4594 immediately with the same arguments. In simple cases this makes
4595 it possible to perform the test for the tag and the matching in
4596 one go. For example:
4597 local expl ret=1
4599 _tags foo bar baz
4600 while _tags; do
4601 _requested foo expl 'description' \
4602 compadd foobar foobaz && ret=0
4603 ...
4604 (( ret )) || break
4605 done
4606 If the command is not compadd, it must nevertheless be prepared
4608 to handle the same options.
4609 _retrieve_cache cache_identifier
4611 This function retrieves completion information from the file
4612 given by cache_identifier, stored in a directory specified by
4613 the cache-path style which defaults to ~/.zcompcache. The
4614 return status is zero if retrieval was successful. It will only
4615 attempt retrieval if the use-cache style is set, so you can call
4616 this function without worrying about whether the user wanted to
4617 use the caching layer.
4618 See _store_cache below for more details.
4620 _sep_parts
4622 This function is passed alternating arrays and separators as
4623 arguments. The arrays specify completions for parts of strings
4624 to be separated by the separators. The arrays may be the names
4625 of array parameters or a quoted list of words in parentheses.
4626 For example, with the array `hosts=(ftp news)' the call
4627 `_sep_parts '(foo bar)' @ hosts' will complete the string `f'
4628 to `foo' and the string `b@n' to `bar@news'.
4629 This function accepts the compadd options `-V', `-J', `-1',
4631 `-2', `-n', `-X', `-M', `-P', `-S', `-r', `-R', and `-q' and
4632 passes them on to the compadd builtin used to add the matches.
4633 _sequence [ -s sep ] [ -n max ] [ -d ] function [ - ] ...
4635 This function is a wrapper to other functions for completing
4636 items in a separated list. The same function is used to complete
4637 each item in the list. The separator is specified with the -s
4638 option. If -s is omitted it will use `,'. Duplicate values are
4639 not matched unless -d is specified. If there is a fixed or maxi‐
4640 mum number of items in the list, this can be specified with the
4641 -n option.
4642 Common compadd options are passed on to the function. It is pos‐
4644 sible to use compadd directly with _sequence, though _values may
4645 be more appropriate in this situation.
4646 _setup tag [ group ]
4648 This function sets up the special parameters used by the comple‐
4649 tion system appropriately for the tag given as the first argu‐
4650 ment. It uses the styles list-colors, list-packed,
4651 list-rows-first, last-prompt, accept-exact, menu and force-list.
4652 The optional group supplies the name of the group in which the
4654 matches will be placed. If it is not given, the tag is used as
4655 the group name.
4656 This function is called automatically from _description and
4658 hence is not normally called explicitly.
4659 _store_cache cache_identifier param ...
4661 This function, together with _retrieve_cache and _cache_invalid,
4662 implements a caching layer which can be used in any completion
4663 function. Data obtained by costly operations are stored in
4664 parameters; this function then dumps the values of those parame‐
4665 ters to a file. The data can then be retrieved quickly from
4666 that file via _retrieve_cache, even in different instances of
4667 the shell.
4668 The cache_identifier specifies the file which the data should be
4670 dumped to. The file is stored in a directory specified by the
4671 cache-path style which defaults to ~/.zcompcache. The remaining
4672 params arguments are the parameters to dump to the file.
4673 The return status is zero if storage was successful. The func‐
4675 tion will only attempt storage if the use-cache style is set, so
4676 you can call this function without worrying about whether the
4677 user wanted to use the caching layer.
4678 The completion function may avoid calling _retrieve_cache when
4680 it already has the completion data available as parameters.
4681 However, in that case it should call _cache_invalid to check
4682 whether the data in the parameters and in the cache are still
4683 valid.
4684 See the _perl_modules completion function for a simple example
4686 of the usage of the caching layer.
4687 _tags [ [ -C name ] tag ... ]
4689 If called with arguments, these are taken to be the names of
4690 tags valid for completions in the current context. These tags
4691 are stored internally and sorted by using the tag-order style.
4692 Next, _tags is called repeatedly without arguments from the same
4694 completion function. This successively selects the first, sec‐
4695 ond, etc. set of tags requested by the user. The return status
4696 is zero if at least one of the tags is requested and non-zero
4697 otherwise. To test if a particular tag is to be tried, the
4698 _requested function should be called (see above).
4699 If `-C name' is given, name is temporarily stored in the argu‐
4701 ment field (the fifth) of the context in the curcontext parame‐
4702 ter during the call to _tags; the field is restored on exit.
4703 This allows _tags to use a more specific context without having
4704 to change and reset the curcontext parameter (which has the same
4705 effect).
4706 _tilde_files
4708 Like _files, but resolve leading tildes according to the rules
4709 of filename expansion, so the suggested completions don't start
4710 with a `~' even if the filename on the command-line does.
4711 _values [ -O name ] [ -s sep ] [ -S sep ] [ -wC ] desc spec ...
4713 This is used to complete arbitrary keywords (values) and their
4714 arguments, or lists of such combinations.
4715 If the first argument is the option `-O name', it will be used
4717 in the same way as by the _arguments function. In other words,
4718 the elements of the name array will be passed to compadd when
4719 executing an action.
4720 If the first argument (or the first argument after `-O name') is
4722 `-s', the next argument is used as the character that separates
4723 multiple values. This character is automatically added after
4724 each value in an auto-removable fashion (see below); all values
4725 completed by `_values -s' appear in the same word on the command
4726 line, unlike completion using _arguments. If this option is not
4727 present, only a single value will be completed per word.
4728 Normally, _values will only use the current word to determine
4730 which values are already present on the command line and hence
4731 are not to be completed again. If the -w option is given, other
4732 arguments are examined as well.
4733 The first non-option argument is used as a string to print as a
4735 description before listing the values.
4736 All other arguments describe the possible values and their argu‐
4738 ments in the same format used for the description of options by
4739 the _arguments function (see above). The only differences are
4740 that no minus or plus sign is required at the beginning, values
4741 can have only one argument, and the forms of action beginning
4742 with an equal sign are not supported.
4743 The character separating a value from its argument can be set
4745 using the option -S (like -s, followed by the character to use
4746 as the separator in the next argument). By default the equals
4747 sign will be used as the separator between values and arguments.
4748 Example:
4750 _values -s , 'description' \
4752 '*foo[bar]' \
4753 '(two)*one[number]:first count:' \
4754 'two[another number]::second count:(1 2 3)'
4755 This describes three possible values: `foo', `one', and `two'.
4757 The first is described as `bar', takes no argument and may
4758 appear more than once. The second is described as `number', may
4759 appear more than once, and takes one mandatory argument
4760 described as `first count'; no action is specified, so it will
4761 not be completed. The `(two)' at the beginning says that if the
4762 value `one' is on the line, the value `two' will no longer be
4763 considered a possible completion. Finally, the last value
4764 (`two') is described as `another number' and takes an optional
4765 argument described as `second count' for which the completions
4766 (to appear after an `=') are `1', `2', and `3'. The _values
4767 function will complete lists of these values separated by com‐
4768 mas.
4769 Like _arguments, this function temporarily adds another context
4771 name component to the arguments element (the fifth) of the cur‐
4772 rent context while executing the action. Here this name is just
4773 the name of the value for which the argument is completed.
4774 The style verbose is used to decide if the descriptions for the
4776 values (but not those for the arguments) should be printed.
4777 The associative array val_args is used to report values and
4779 their arguments; this works similarly to the opt_args associa‐
4780 tive array used by _arguments. Hence the function calling _val‐
4781 ues should declare the local parameters state, state_descr,
4782 line, context and val_args:
4783 local context state state_descr line
4785 typeset -A val_args
4786 when using an action of the form `->string'. With this function
4788 the context parameter will be set to the name of the value whose
4789 argument is to be completed. Note that for _values, the state
4790 and state_descr are scalars rather than arrays. Only a single
4791 matching state is returned.
4792 Note also that _values normally adds the character used as the
4794 separator between values as an auto-removable suffix (similar to
4795 a `/' after a directory). However, this is not possible for a
4796 `->string' action as the matches for the argument are generated
4797 by the calling function. To get the usual behaviour, the call‐
4798 ing function can add the separator x as a suffix by passing the
4799 options `-qS x' either directly or indirectly to compadd.
4800 The option -C is treated in the same way as it is by _arguments.
4802 In that case the parameter curcontext should be made local
4803 instead of context (as described above).
4804 _wanted [ -x ] [ -C name ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr command [ arg ...]
4806 In many contexts, completion can only generate one particular
4807 set of matches, usually corresponding to a single tag. However,
4808 it is still necessary to decide whether the user requires
4809 matches of this type. This function is useful in such a case.
4810 The arguments to _wanted are the same as those to _requested,
4812 i.e. arguments to be passed to _description. However, in this
4813 case the command is not optional; all the processing of tags,
4814 including the loop over both tags and tag labels and the genera‐
4815 tion of matches, is carried out automatically by _wanted.
4816 Hence to offer only one tag and immediately add the correspond‐
4818 ing matches with the given description:
4819 local expl
4821 _wanted tag expl 'description' \
4822 compadd matches...
4823 Note that, as for _requested, the command must be able to accept
4825 options to be passed down to compadd.
4826 Like _tags this function supports the -C option to give a dif‐
4828 ferent name for the argument context field. The -x option has
4829 the same meaning as for _description.
4830 _widgets [ -g pattern ]
4832 This function completes names of zle widgets (see the section
4833 `Widgets' in zshzle(1)). The pattern, if present, is matched
4834 against values of the $widgets special parameter, documented in
4835 the section `The zsh/zleparameter Module' in zshmodules(1).
4836
4838 There are some standard variables, initialised by the _main_complete
4839 function and then used from other functions.
4840 The standard variables are:
4842 _comp_caller_options
4844 The completion system uses setopt to set a number of options.
4845 This allows functions to be written without concern for compati‐
4846 bility with every possible combination of user options. However,
4847 sometimes completion needs to know what the user's option pref‐
4848 erences are. These are saved in the _comp_caller_options asso‐
4849 ciative array. Option names, spelled in lowercase without under‐
4850 scores, are mapped to one or other of the strings `on' and
4851 `off'.
4852 _comp_priv_prefix
4854 Completion functions such as _sudo can set the
4855 _comp_priv_prefix array to a command prefix that may then
4856 be used by _call_program to match the privileges when
4857 calling programs to generate matches.
4858 Two more features are offered by the _main_complete function.
4860 The arrays compprefuncs and comppostfuncs may contain names of
4861 functions that are to be called immediately before or after com‐
4862 pletion has been tried. A function will only be called once
4863 unless it explicitly reinserts itself into the array.
4864
4866 In the source distribution, the files are contained in various subdi‐
4867 rectories of the Completion directory. They may have been installed in
4868 the same structure, or into one single function directory. The follow‐
4869 ing is a description of the files found in the original directory
4870 structure. If you wish to alter an installed file, you will need to
4871 copy it to some directory which appears earlier in your fpath than the
4872 standard directory where it appears.
4873 Base The core functions and special completion widgets automatically
4875 bound to keys. You will certainly need most of these, though
4876 will probably not need to alter them. Many of these are docu‐
4877 mented above.
4878 Zsh Functions for completing arguments of shell builtin commands and
4880 utility functions for this. Some of these are also used by
4881 functions from the Unix directory.
4882 Unix Functions for completing arguments of external commands and
4884 suites of commands. They may need modifying for your system,
4885 although in many cases some attempt is made to decide which ver‐
4886 sion of a command is present. For example, completion for the
4887 mount command tries to determine the system it is running on,
4888 while completion for many other utilities try to decide whether
4889 the GNU version of the command is in use, and hence whether the
4890 --help option is supported.
4891 X, AIX, BSD, ...
4893 Completion and utility function for commands available only on
4894 some systems. These are not arranged hierarchically, so, for
4895 example, both the Linux and Debian directories, as well as the X
4896 directory, may be useful on your system.
4897zsh 5.6.2 September 14, 2018 ZSHCOMPSYS(1)