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. Setting $_compskip in this manner is
434 of particular utility when using the -p option, as otherwise the
435 dispatcher will move on to additional functions (likely the
436 default one) after calling the pattern-context one, which can
437 mangle the display of completion possibilities if not handled
438 properly.
439 The form with -k defines a widget with the same name as the
441 function that will be called for each of the key-sequences; this
442 is like the #compdef -k tag. The function should generate the
443 completions needed and will otherwise behave like the builtin
444 widget whose name is given as the style argument. The widgets
445 usable for this are: complete-word, delete-char-or-list,
446 expand-or-complete, expand-or-complete-prefix, list-choices,
447 menu-complete, menu-expand-or-complete, and reverse-menu-com‐
448 plete, as well as menu-select if the zsh/complist module is
449 loaded. The option -n prevents the key being bound if it is
450 already to bound to something other than undefined-key.
451 The form with -K is similar and defines multiple widgets based
453 on the same function, each of which requires the set of three
454 arguments name, style and key-sequence, where the latter two are
455 as for -k and the first must be a unique widget name beginning
456 with an underscore.
457 Wherever applicable, the -a option makes the function autoload‐
459 able, equivalent to autoload -U function.
460 The function compdef can be used to associate existing completion func‐
462 tions with new commands. For example,
463 compdef _pids foo
465 uses the function _pids to complete process IDs for the command foo.
467 Note also the _gnu_generic function described below, which can be used
469 to complete options for commands that understand the `--help' option.
470
472 This section gives a short overview of how the completion system works,
473 and then more detail on how users can configure how and when matches
474 are generated.
475 Overview
477 When completion is attempted somewhere on the command line the comple‐
478 tion system begins building the context. The context represents every‐
479 thing that the shell knows about the meaning of the command line and
480 the significance of the cursor position. This takes account of a num‐
481 ber of things including the command word (such as `grep' or `zsh') and
482 options to which the current word may be an argument (such as the `-o'
483 option to zsh which takes a shell option as an argument).
484 The context starts out very generic ("we are beginning a completion")
486 and becomes more specific as more is learned ("the current word is in a
487 position that is usually a command name" or "the current word might be
488 a variable name" and so on). Therefore the context will vary during
489 the same call to the completion system.
490 This context information is condensed into a string consisting of mul‐
492 tiple fields separated by colons, referred to simply as `the context'
493 in the remainder of the documentation. Note that a user of the comple‐
494 tion system rarely needs to compose a context string, unless for exam‐
495 ple a new function is being written to perform completion for a new
496 command. What a user may need to do is compose a style pattern, which
497 is matched against a context when needed to look up context-sensitive
498 options that configure the completion system.
499 The next few paragraphs explain how a context is composed within the
501 completion function suite. Following that is discussion of how styles
502 are defined. Styles determine such things as how the matches are gen‐
503 erated, similarly to shell options but with much more control. They
504 are defined with the zstyle builtin command (see zshmodules(1)).
505 The context string always consists of a fixed set of fields, separated
507 by colons and with a leading colon before the first. Fields which are
508 not yet known are left empty, but the surrounding colons appear anyway.
509 The fields are always in the order :completion:function:completer:com‐
510 mand:argument:tag. These have the following meaning:
511 · The literal string completion, saying that this style is used by
513 the completion system. This distinguishes the context from
514 those used by, for example, zle widgets and ZFTP functions.
515 · The function, if completion is called from a named widget rather
518 than through the normal completion system. Typically this is
519 blank, but it is set by special widgets such as predict-on and
520 the various functions in the Widget directory of the distribu‐
521 tion to the name of that function, often in an abbreviated form.
522 · The completer currently active, the name of the function without
525 the leading underscore and with other underscores converted to
526 hyphens. A `completer' is in overall control of how completion
527 is to be performed; `complete' is the simplest, but other com‐
528 pleters exist to perform related tasks such as correction, or to
529 modify the behaviour of a later completer. See the section
530 `Control Functions' below for more information.
531 · The command or a special -context-, just at it appears following
534 the #compdef tag or the compdef function. Completion functions
535 for commands that have sub-commands usually modify this field to
536 contain the name of the command followed by a minus sign and the
537 sub-command. For example, the completion function for the cvs
538 command sets this field to cvs-add when completing arguments to
539 the add subcommand.
540 · The argument; this indicates which command line or option argu‐
543 ment we are completing. For command arguments this generally
544 takes the form argument-n, where n is the number of the argu‐
545 ment, and for arguments to options the form option-opt-n where n
546 is the number of the argument to option opt. However, this is
547 only the case if the command line is parsed with standard
548 UNIX-style options and arguments, so many completions do not set
549 this.
550 · The tag. As described previously, tags are used to discriminate
553 between the types of matches a completion function can generate
554 in a certain context. Any completion function may use any tag
555 name it likes, but a list of the more common ones is given
556 below.
557 The context is gradually put together as the functions are executed,
560 starting with the main entry point, which adds :completion: and the
561 function element if necessary. The completer then adds the completer
562 element. The contextual completion adds the command and argument
563 options. Finally, the tag is added when the types of completion are
564 known. For example, the context name
565 :completion::complete:dvips:option-o-1:files
567 says that normal completion was attempted as the first argument to the
569 option -o of the command dvips:
570 dvips -o ...
572 and the completion function will generate filenames.
574 Usually completion will be tried for all possible tags in an order
576 given by the completion function. However, this can be altered by
577 using the tag-order style. Completion is then restricted to the list
578 of given tags in the given order.
579 The _complete_help bindable command shows all the contexts and tags
581 available for completion at a particular point. This provides an easy
582 way of finding information for tag-order and other styles. It is
583 described in the section `Bindable Commands' below.
584 When looking up styles the completion system uses full context names,
586 including the tag. Looking up the value of a style therefore consists
587 of two things: the context, which is matched to the most specific (best
588 fitting) style pattern, and the name of the style itself, which must be
589 matched exactly. The following examples demonstrate that style pat‐
590 terns may be loosely defined for styles that apply broadly, or as
591 tightly defined as desired for styles that apply in narrower circum‐
592 stances.
593 For example, many completion functions can generate matches in a simple
595 and a verbose form and use the verbose style to decide which form
596 should be used. To make all such functions use the verbose form, put
597 zstyle ':completion:*' verbose yes
599 in a startup file (probably .zshrc). This gives the verbose style the
601 value yes in every context inside the completion system, unless that
602 context has a more specific definition. It is best to avoid giving the
603 context as `*' in case the style has some meaning outside the comple‐
604 tion system.
605 Many such general purpose styles can be configured simply by using the
607 compinstall function.
608 A more specific example of the use of the verbose style is by the com‐
610 pletion for the kill builtin. If the style is set, the builtin lists
611 full job texts and process command lines; otherwise it shows the bare
612 job numbers and PIDs. To turn the style off for this use only:
613 zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*:*' verbose no
615 For even more control, the style can use one of the tags `jobs' or
617 `processes'. To turn off verbose display only for jobs:
618 zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*:jobs' verbose no
620 The -e option to zstyle even allows completion function code to appear
622 as the argument to a style; this requires some understanding of the
623 internals of completion functions (see see zshcompwid(1))). For exam‐
624 ple,
625 zstyle -e ':completion:*' hosts 'reply=($myhosts)'
627 This forces the value of the hosts style to be read from the variable
629 myhosts each time a host name is needed; this is useful if the value of
630 myhosts can change dynamically. For another useful example, see the
631 example in the description of the file-list style below. This form can
632 be slow and should be avoided for commonly examined styles such as menu
633 and list-rows-first.
634 Note that the order in which styles are defined does not matter; the
636 style mechanism uses the most specific possible match for a particular
637 style to determine the set of values. More precisely, strings are pre‐
638 ferred over patterns (for example, `:completion::complete:::foo' is
639 more specific than `:completion::complete:::*'), and longer patterns
640 are preferred over shorter patterns.
641 A good rule of thumb is that any completion style pattern that needs to
643 include more than one wildcard (*) and that does not end in a tag name,
644 should include all six colons (:), possibly surrounding additional
645 wildcards.
646 Style names like those of tags are arbitrary and depend on the comple‐
648 tion function. However, the following two sections list some of the
649 most common tags and styles.
650 Standard Tags
652 Some of the following are only used when looking up particular styles
653 and do not refer to a type of match.
654 accounts
656 used to look up the users-hosts style
657 all-expansions
659 used by the _expand completer when adding the single string con‐
660 taining all possible expansions
661 all-files
663 for the names of all files (as distinct from a particular sub‐
664 set, see the globbed-files tag).
665 arguments
667 for arguments to a command
668 arrays for names of array parameters
670 association-keys
672 for keys of associative arrays; used when completing inside a
673 subscript to a parameter of this type
674 bookmarks
676 when completing bookmarks (e.g. for URLs and the zftp function
677 suite)
678 builtins
680 for names of builtin commands
681 characters
683 for single characters in arguments of commands such as stty.
684 Also used when completing character classes after an opening
685 bracket
686 colormapids
688 for X colormap ids
689 colors for color names
691 commands
693 for names of external commands. Also used by complex commands
694 such as cvs when completing names subcommands.
695 contexts
697 for contexts in arguments to the zstyle builtin command
698 corrections
700 used by the _approximate and _correct completers for possible
701 corrections
702 cursors
704 for cursor names used by X programs
705 default
707 used in some contexts to provide a way of supplying a default
708 when more specific tags are also valid. Note that this tag is
709 used when only the function field of the context name is set
710 descriptions
712 used when looking up the value of the format style to generate
713 descriptions for types of matches
714 devices
716 for names of device special files
717 directories
719 for names of directories -- local-directories is used instead
720 when completing arguments of cd and related builtin commands
721 when the cdpath array is set
722 directory-stack
724 for entries in the directory stack
725 displays
727 for X display names
728 domains
730 for network domains
731 email-plugin
733 for email addresses from the `_email-plugin' backend of
734 _email_addresses
735 expansions
737 used by the _expand completer for individual words (as opposed
738 to the complete set of expansions) resulting from the expansion
739 of a word on the command line
740 extensions
742 for X server extensions
743 file-descriptors
745 for numbers of open file descriptors
746 files the generic file-matching tag used by functions completing file‐
748 names
749 fonts for X font names
751 fstypes
753 for file system types (e.g. for the mount command)
754 functions
756 names of functions -- normally shell functions, although certain
757 commands may understand other kinds of function
758 globbed-files
760 for filenames when the name has been generated by pattern match‐
761 ing
762 groups for names of user groups
764 history-words
766 for words from the history
767 hosts for hostnames
769 indexes
771 for array indexes
772 jobs for jobs (as listed by the `jobs' builtin)
774 interfaces
776 for network interfaces
777 keymaps
779 for names of zsh keymaps
780 keysyms
782 for names of X keysyms
783 libraries
785 for names of system libraries
786 limits for system limits
788 local-directories
790 for names of directories that are subdirectories of the current
791 working directory when completing arguments of cd and related
792 builtin commands (compare path-directories) -- when the cdpath
793 array is unset, directories is used instead
794 manuals
796 for names of manual pages
797 mailboxes
799 for e-mail folders
800 maps for map names (e.g. NIS maps)
802 messages
804 used to look up the format style for messages
805 modifiers
807 for names of X modifiers
808 modules
810 for modules (e.g. zsh modules)
811 my-accounts
813 used to look up the users-hosts style
814 named-directories
816 for named directories (you wouldn't have guessed that, would
817 you?)
818 names for all kinds of names
820 newsgroups
822 for USENET groups
823 nicknames
825 for nicknames of NIS maps
826 options
828 for command options
829 original
831 used by the _approximate, _correct and _expand completers when
832 offering the original string as a match
833 other-accounts
835 used to look up the users-hosts style
836 other-files
838 for the names of any non-directory files. This is used instead
839 of all-files when the list-dirs-first style is in effect.
840 packages
842 for packages (e.g. rpm or installed Debian packages)
843 parameters
845 for names of parameters
846 path-directories
848 for names of directories found by searching the cdpath array
849 when completing arguments of cd and related builtin commands
850 (compare local-directories)
851 paths used to look up the values of the expand, ambiguous and spe‐
853 cial-dirs styles
854 pods for perl pods (documentation files)
856 ports for communication ports
858 prefixes
860 for prefixes (like those of a URL)
861 printers
863 for print queue names
864 processes
866 for process identifiers
867 processes-names
869 used to look up the command style when generating the names of
870 processes for killall
871 sequences
873 for sequences (e.g. mh sequences)
874 sessions
876 for sessions in the zftp function suite
877 signals
879 for signal names
880 strings
882 for strings (e.g. the replacement strings for the cd builtin
883 command)
884 styles for styles used by the zstyle builtin command
886 suffixes
888 for filename extensions
889 tags for tags (e.g. rpm tags)
891 targets
893 for makefile targets
894 time-zones
896 for time zones (e.g. when setting the TZ parameter)
897 types for types of whatever (e.g. address types for the xhost command)
899 urls used to look up the urls and local styles when completing URLs
901 users for usernames
903 values for one of a set of values in certain lists
905 variant
907 used by _pick_variant to look up the command to run when deter‐
908 mining what program is installed for a particular command name.
909 visuals
911 for X visuals
912 warnings
914 used to look up the format style for warnings
915 widgets
917 for zsh widget names
918 windows
920 for IDs of X windows
921 zsh-options
923 for shell options
924 Standard Styles
926 Note that the values of several of these styles represent boolean val‐
927 ues. Any of the strings `true', `on', `yes', and `1' can be used for
928 the value `true' and any of the strings `false', `off', `no', and `0'
929 for the value `false'. The behavior for any other value is undefined
930 except where explicitly mentioned. The default value may be either
931 `true' or `false' if the style is not set.
932 Some of these styles are tested first for every possible tag corre‐
934 sponding to a type of match, and if no style was found, for the default
935 tag. The most notable styles of this type are menu, list-colors and
936 styles controlling completion listing such as list-packed and
937 last-prompt. When tested for the default tag, only the function field
938 of the context will be set so that a style using the default tag will
939 normally be defined along the lines of:
940 zstyle ':completion:*:default' menu ...
942 accept-exact
944 This is tested for the default tag in addition to the tags valid
945 for the current context. If it is set to `true' and any of the
946 trial matches is the same as the string on the command line,
947 this match will immediately be accepted (even if it would other‐
948 wise be considered ambiguous).
949 When completing pathnames (where the tag used is `paths') this
951 style accepts any number of patterns as the value in addition to
952 the boolean values. Pathnames matching one of these patterns
953 will be accepted immediately even if the command line contains
954 some more partially typed pathname components and these match no
955 file under the directory accepted.
956 This style is also used by the _expand completer to decide if
958 words beginning with a tilde or parameter expansion should be
959 expanded. For example, if there are parameters foo and foobar,
960 the string `$foo' will only be expanded if accept-exact is set
961 to `true'; otherwise the completion system will be allowed to
962 complete $foo to $foobar. If the style is set to `continue',
963 _expand will add the expansion as a match and the completion
964 system will also be allowed to continue.
965 accept-exact-dirs
967 This is used by filename completion. Unlike accept-exact it is
968 a boolean. By default, filename completion examines all compo‐
969 nents of a path to see if there are completions of that compo‐
970 nent, even if the component matches an existing directory. For
971 example, when completion after /usr/bin/, the function examines
972 possible completions to /usr.
973 When this style is `true', any prefix of a path that matches an
975 existing directory is accepted without any attempt to complete
976 it further. Hence, in the given example, the path /usr/bin/ is
977 accepted immediately and completion tried in that directory.
978 This style is also useful when completing after directories that
980 magically appear when referenced, such as ZFS .zfs directories
981 or NetApp .snapshot directories. When the style is set the
982 shell does not check for the existence of the directory within
983 the parent directory.
984 If you wish to inhibit this behaviour entirely, set the
986 path-completion style (see below) to `false'.
987 add-space
989 This style is used by the _expand completer. If it is `true'
990 (the default), a space will be inserted after all words result‐
991 ing from the expansion, or a slash in the case of directory
992 names. If the value is `file', the completer will only add a
993 space to names of existing files. Either a boolean `true' or
994 the value `file' may be combined with `subst', in which case the
995 completer will not add a space to words generated from the
996 expansion of a substitution of the form `$(...)' or `${...}'.
997 The _prefix completer uses this style as a simple boolean value
999 to decide if a space should be inserted before the suffix.
1000 ambiguous
1002 This applies when completing non-final components of filename
1003 paths, in other words those with a trailing slash. If it is
1004 set, the cursor is left after the first ambiguous component,
1005 even if menu completion is in use. The style is always tested
1006 with the paths tag.
1007 assign-list
1009 When completing after an equals sign that is being treated as an
1010 assignment, the completion system normally completes only one
1011 filename. In some cases the value may be a list of filenames
1012 separated by colons, as with PATH and similar parameters. This
1013 style can be set to a list of patterns matching the names of
1014 such parameters.
1015 The default is to complete lists when the word on the line
1017 already contains a colon.
1018 auto-description
1020 If set, this style's value will be used as the description for
1021 options that are not described by the completion functions, but
1022 that have exactly one argument. The sequence `%d' in the value
1023 will be replaced by the description for this argument. Depend‐
1024 ing on personal preferences, it may be useful to set this style
1025 to something like `specify: %d'. Note that this may not work
1026 for some commands.
1027 avoid-completer
1029 This is used by the _all_matches completer to decide if the
1030 string consisting of all matches should be added to the list
1031 currently being generated. Its value is a list of names of com‐
1032 pleters. If any of these is the name of the completer that gen‐
1033 erated the matches in this completion, the string will not be
1034 added.
1035 The default value for this style is `_expand _old_list _correct
1037 _approximate', i.e. it contains the completers for which a
1038 string with all matches will almost never be wanted.
1039 cache-path
1041 This style defines the path where any cache files containing
1042 dumped completion data are stored. It defaults to `$ZDOT‐
1043 DIR/.zcompcache', or `$HOME/.zcompcache' if $ZDOTDIR is not
1044 defined. The completion cache will not be used unless the
1045 use-cache style is set.
1046 cache-policy
1048 This style defines the function that will be used to determine
1049 whether a cache needs rebuilding. See the section on the
1050 _cache_invalid function below.
1051 call-command
1053 This style is used in the function for commands such as make and
1054 ant where calling the command directly to generate matches suf‐
1055 fers problems such as being slow or, as in the case of make can
1056 potentially cause actions in the makefile to be executed. If it
1057 is set to `true' the command is called to generate matches. The
1058 default value of this style is `false'.
1059 command
1061 In many places, completion functions need to call external com‐
1062 mands to generate the list of completions. This style can be
1063 used to override the command that is called in some such cases.
1064 The elements of the value are joined with spaces to form a com‐
1065 mand line to execute. The value can also start with a hyphen,
1066 in which case the usual command will be added to the end; this
1067 is most useful for putting `builtin' or `command' in front to
1068 make sure the appropriate version of a command is called, for
1069 example to avoid calling a shell function with the same name as
1070 an external command.
1071 As an example, the completion function for process IDs uses this
1073 style with the processes tag to generate the IDs to complete and
1074 the list of processes to display (if the verbose style is
1075 `true'). The list produced by the command should look like the
1076 output of the ps command. The first line is not displayed, but
1077 is searched for the string `PID' (or `pid') to find the position
1078 of the process IDs in the following lines. If the line does not
1079 contain `PID', the first numbers in each of the other lines are
1080 taken as the process IDs to complete.
1081 Note that the completion function generally has to call the
1083 specified command for each attempt to generate the completion
1084 list. Hence care should be taken to specify only commands that
1085 take a short time to run, and in particular to avoid any that
1086 may never terminate.
1087 command-path
1089 This is a list of directories to search for commands to com‐
1090 plete. The default for this style is the value of the special
1091 parameter path.
1092 commands
1094 This is used by the function completing sub-commands for the
1095 system initialisation scripts (residing in /etc/init.d or some‐
1096 where not too far away from that). Its values give the default
1097 commands to complete for those commands for which the completion
1098 function isn't able to find them out automatically. The default
1099 for this style are the two strings `start' and `stop'.
1100 complete
1102 This is used by the _expand_alias function when invoked as a
1103 bindable command. If set to `true' and the word on the command
1104 line is not the name of an alias, matching alias names will be
1105 completed.
1106 complete-options
1108 This is used by the completer for cd, chdir and pushd. For
1109 these commands a - is used to introduce a directory stack entry
1110 and completion of these is far more common than completing
1111 options. Hence unless the value of this style is `true' options
1112 will not be completed, even after an initial -. If it is
1113 `true', options will be completed after an initial - unless
1114 there is a preceding -- on the command line.
1115 completer
1117 The strings given as the value of this style provide the names
1118 of the completer functions to use. The available completer func‐
1119 tions are described in the section `Control Functions' below.
1120 Each string may be either the name of a completer function or a
1122 string of the form `function:name'. In the first case the com‐
1123 pleter field of the context will contain the name of the com‐
1124 pleter without the leading underscore and with all other under‐
1125 scores replaced by hyphens. In the second case the function is
1126 the name of the completer to call, but the context will contain
1127 the user-defined name in the completer field of the context. If
1128 the name starts with a hyphen, the string for the context will
1129 be build from the name of the completer function as in the first
1130 case with the name appended to it. For example:
1131 zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _complete:-foo
1133 Here, completion will call the _complete completer twice, once
1135 using `complete' and once using `complete-foo' in the completer
1136 field of the context. Normally, using the same completer more
1137 than once only makes sense when used with the `functions:name'
1138 form, because otherwise the context name will be the same in all
1139 calls to the completer; possible exceptions to this rule are the
1140 _ignored and _prefix completers.
1141 The default value for this style is `_complete _ignored': only
1143 completion will be done, first using the ignored-patterns style
1144 and the $fignore array and then without ignoring matches.
1145 condition
1147 This style is used by the _list completer function to decide if
1148 insertion of matches should be delayed unconditionally. The
1149 default is `true'.
1150 delimiters
1152 This style is used when adding a delimiter for use with history
1153 modifiers or glob qualifiers that have delimited arguments. It
1154 is an array of preferred delimiters to add. Non-special charac‐
1155 ters are preferred as the completion system may otherwise become
1156 confused. The default list is :, +, /, -, %. The list may be
1157 empty to force a delimiter to be typed.
1158 disabled
1160 If this is set to `true', the _expand_alias completer and bind‐
1161 able command will try to expand disabled aliases, too. The
1162 default is `false'.
1163 domains
1165 A list of names of network domains for completion. If this is
1166 not set, domain names will be taken from the file
1167 /etc/resolv.conf.
1168 environ
1170 The environ style is used when completing for `sudo'. It is set
1171 to an array of `VAR=value' assignments to be exported into the
1172 local environment before the completion for the target command
1173 is invoked.
1174 zstyle ':completion:*:sudo::' environ \
1175 PATH="/sbin:/usr/sbin:$PATH" HOME="/root"
1176 expand This style is used when completing strings consisting of multi‐
1178 ple parts, such as path names.
1179 If one of its values is the string `prefix', the partially typed
1181 word from the line will be expanded as far as possible even if
1182 trailing parts cannot be completed.
1183 If one of its values is the string `suffix', matching names for
1185 components after the first ambiguous one will also be added.
1186 This means that the resulting string is the longest unambiguous
1187 string possible. However, menu completion can be used to cycle
1188 through all matches.
1189 fake This style may be set for any completion context. It specifies
1191 additional strings that will always be completed in that con‐
1192 text. The form of each string is `value:description'; the colon
1193 and description may be omitted, but any literal colons in value
1194 must be quoted with a backslash. Any description provided is
1195 shown alongside the value in completion listings.
1196 It is important to use a sufficiently restrictive context when
1198 specifying fake strings. Note that the styles fake-files and
1199 fake-parameters provide additional features when completing
1200 files or parameters.
1201 fake-always
1203 This works identically to the fake style except that the
1204 ignored-patterns style is not applied to it. This makes it pos‐
1205 sible to override a set of matches completely by setting the
1206 ignored patterns to `*'.
1207 The following shows a way of supplementing any tag with arbi‐
1209 trary data, but having it behave for display purposes like a
1210 separate tag. In this example we use the features of the
1211 tag-order style to divide the named-directories tag into two
1212 when performing completion with the standard completer complete
1213 for arguments of cd. The tag named-directories-normal behaves
1214 as normal, but the tag named-directories-mine contains a fixed
1215 set of directories. This has the effect of adding the match
1216 group `extra directories' with the given completions.
1217 zstyle ':completion::complete:cd:*' tag-order \
1219 'named-directories:-mine:extra\ directories
1220 named-directories:-normal:named\ directories *'
1221 zstyle ':completion::complete:cd:*:named-directories-mine' \
1222 fake-always mydir1 mydir2
1223 zstyle ':completion::complete:cd:*:named-directories-mine' \
1224 ignored-patterns '*'
1225 fake-files
1227 This style is used when completing files and looked up without a
1228 tag. Its values are of the form `dir:names...'. This will add
1229 the names (strings separated by spaces) as possible matches when
1230 completing in the directory dir, even if no such files really
1231 exist. The dir may be a pattern; pattern characters or colons
1232 in dir should be quoted with a backslash to be treated liter‐
1233 ally.
1234 This can be useful on systems that support special file systems
1236 whose top-level pathnames can not be listed or generated with
1237 glob patterns (but see accept-exact-dirs for a more general way
1238 of dealing with this problem). It can also be used for directo‐
1239 ries for which one does not have read permission.
1240 The pattern form can be used to add a certain `magic' entry to
1242 all directories on a particular file system.
1243 fake-parameters
1245 This is used by the completion function for parameter names.
1246 Its values are names of parameters that might not yet be set but
1247 should be completed nonetheless. Each name may also be followed
1248 by a colon and a string specifying the type of the parameter
1249 (like `scalar', `array' or `integer'). If the type is given,
1250 the name will only be completed if parameters of that type are
1251 required in the particular context. Names for which no type is
1252 specified will always be completed.
1253 file-list
1255 This style controls whether files completed using the standard
1256 builtin mechanism are to be listed with a long list similar to
1257 ls -l. Note that this feature uses the shell module zsh/stat
1258 for file information; this loads the builtin stat which will
1259 replace any external stat executable. To avoid this the follow‐
1260 ing code can be included in an initialization file:
1261 zmodload -i zsh/stat
1263 disable stat
1264 The style may either be set to a `true' value (or `all'), or one
1266 of the values `insert' or `list', indicating that files are to
1267 be listed in long format in all circumstances, or when attempt‐
1268 ing to insert a file name, or when listing file names without
1269 attempting to insert one.
1270 More generally, the value may be an array of any of the above
1272 values, optionally followed by =num. If num is present it gives
1273 the maximum number of matches for which long listing style will
1274 be used. For example,
1275 zstyle ':completion:*' file-list list=20 insert=10
1277 specifies that long format will be used when listing up to 20
1279 files or inserting a file with up to 10 matches (assuming a
1280 listing is to be shown at all, for example on an ambiguous com‐
1281 pletion), else short format will be used.
1282 zstyle -e ':completion:*' file-list \
1284 '(( ${+NUMERIC} )) && reply=(true)'
1285 specifies that long format will be used any time a numeric argu‐
1287 ment is supplied, else short format.
1288 file-patterns
1290 This is used by the standard function for completing filenames,
1291 _files. If the style is unset up to three tags are offered,
1292 `globbed-files',`directories' and `all-files', depending on the
1293 types of files expected by the caller of _files. The first two
1294 (`globbed-files' and `directories') are normally offered
1295 together to make it easier to complete files in sub-directories.
1296 The file-patterns style provides alternatives to the default
1298 tags, which are not used. Its value consists of elements of the
1299 form `pattern:tag'; each string may contain any number of such
1300 specifications separated by spaces.
1301 The pattern is a pattern that is to be used to generate file‐
1303 names. Any occurrence of the sequence `%p' is replaced by any
1304 pattern(s) passed by the function calling _files. Colons in the
1305 pattern must be preceded by a backslash to make them distin‐
1306 guishable from the colon before the tag. If more than one pat‐
1307 tern is needed, the patterns can be given inside braces, sepa‐
1308 rated by commas.
1309 The tags of all strings in the value will be offered by _files
1311 and used when looking up other styles. Any tags in the same
1312 word will be offered at the same time and before later words.
1313 If no `:tag' is given the `files' tag will be used.
1314 The tag may also be followed by an optional second colon and a
1316 description, which will be used for the `%d' in the value of the
1317 format style (if that is set) instead of the default description
1318 supplied by the completion function. If the description given
1319 here contains itself a `%d', that is replaced with the descrip‐
1320 tion supplied by the completion function.
1321 For example, to make the rm command first complete only names of
1323 object files and then the names of all files if there is no
1324 matching object file:
1325 zstyle ':completion:*:*:rm:*:*' file-patterns \
1327 '*.o:object-files' '%p:all-files'
1328 To alter the default behaviour of file completion -- offer files
1330 matching a pattern and directories on the first attempt, then
1331 all files -- to offer only matching files on the first attempt,
1332 then directories, and finally all files:
1333 zstyle ':completion:*' file-patterns \
1335 '%p:globbed-files' '*(-/):directories' '*:all-files'
1336 This works even where there is no special pattern: _files
1338 matches all files using the pattern `*' at the first step and
1339 stops when it sees this pattern. Note also it will never try a
1340 pattern more than once for a single completion attempt.
1341 During the execution of completion functions, the EXTENDED_GLOB
1343 option is in effect, so the characters `#', `~' and `^' have
1344 special meanings in the patterns.
1345 file-sort
1347 The standard filename completion function uses this style with‐
1348 out a tag to determine in which order the names should be
1349 listed; menu completion will cycle through them in the same
1350 order. The possible values are: `size' to sort by the size of
1351 the file; `links' to sort by the number of links to the file;
1352 `modification' (or `time' or `date') to sort by the last modifi‐
1353 cation time; `access' to sort by the last access time; and
1354 `inode' (or `change') to sort by the last inode change time. If
1355 the style is set to any other value, or is unset, files will be
1356 sorted alphabetically by name. If the value contains the string
1357 `reverse', sorting is done in the opposite order. If the value
1358 contains the string `follow', timestamps are associated with the
1359 targets of symbolic links; the default is to use the timestamps
1360 of the links themselves.
1361 file-split-chars
1363 A set of characters that will cause all file completions for the
1364 given context to be split at the point where any of the charac‐
1365 ters occurs. A typical use is to set the style to :; then
1366 everything up to and including the last : in the string so far
1367 is ignored when completing files. As this is quite
1368 heavy-handed, it is usually preferable to update completion
1369 functions for contexts where this behaviour is useful.
1370 filter The ldap plugin of email address completion (see
1372 _email_addresses) uses this style to specify the attributes to
1373 match against when filtering entries. So for example, if the
1374 style is set to `sn', matching is done against surnames. Stan‐
1375 dard LDAP filtering is used so normal completion matching is
1376 bypassed. If this style is not set, the LDAP plugin is skipped.
1377 You may also need to set the command style to specify how to
1378 connect to your LDAP server.
1379 force-list
1381 This forces a list of completions to be shown at any point where
1382 listing is done, even in cases where the list would usually be
1383 suppressed. For example, normally the list is only shown if
1384 there are at least two different matches. By setting this style
1385 to `always', the list will always be shown, even if there is
1386 only a single match that will immediately be accepted. The
1387 style may also be set to a number. In this case the list will
1388 be shown if there are at least that many matches, even if they
1389 would all insert the same string.
1390 This style is tested for the default tag as well as for each tag
1392 valid for the current completion. Hence the listing can be
1393 forced only for certain types of match.
1394 format If this is set for the descriptions tag, its value is used as a
1396 string to display above matches in completion lists. The
1397 sequence `%d' in this string will be replaced with a short
1398 description of what these matches are. This string may also
1399 contain the output attribute sequences understood by compadd -X
1400 (see zshcompwid(1)).
1401 The style is tested with each tag valid for the current comple‐
1403 tion before it is tested for the descriptions tag. Hence dif‐
1404 ferent format strings can be defined for different types of
1405 match.
1406 Note also that some completer functions define additional
1408 `%'-sequences. These are described for the completer functions
1409 that make use of them.
1410 Some completion functions display messages that may be cus‐
1412 tomised by setting this style for the messages tag. Here, the
1413 `%d' is replaced with a message given by the completion func‐
1414 tion.
1415 Finally, the format string is looked up with the warnings tag,
1417 for use when no matches could be generated at all. In this case
1418 the `%d' is replaced with the descriptions for the matches that
1419 were expected separated by spaces. The sequence `%D' is
1420 replaced with the same descriptions separated by newlines.
1421 It is possible to use printf-style field width specifiers with
1423 `%d' and similar escape sequences. This is handled by the zfor‐
1424 mat builtin command from the zsh/zutil module, see zshmod‐
1425 ules(1).
1426 glob This is used by the _expand completer. If it is set to `true'
1428 (the default), globbing will be attempted on the words resulting
1429 from a previous substitution (see the substitute style) or else
1430 the original string from the line.
1431 global If this is set to `true' (the default), the _expand_alias com‐
1433 pleter and bindable command will try to expand global aliases.
1434 group-name
1436 The completion system can group different types of matches,
1437 which appear in separate lists. This style can be used to give
1438 the names of groups for particular tags. For example, in com‐
1439 mand position the completion system generates names of builtin
1440 and external commands, names of aliases, shell functions and
1441 parameters and reserved words as possible completions. To have
1442 the external commands and shell functions listed separately:
1443 zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:commands' \
1445 group-name commands
1446 zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:functions' \
1447 group-name functions
1448 As a consequence, any match with the same tag will be displayed
1450 in the same group.
1451 If the name given is the empty string the name of the tag for
1453 the matches will be used as the name of the group. So, to have
1454 all different types of matches displayed separately, one can
1455 just set:
1456 zstyle ':completion:*' group-name ''
1458 All matches for which no group name is defined will be put in a
1460 group named -default-.
1461 group-order
1463 This style is additional to the group-name style to specify the
1464 order for display of the groups defined by that style (compare
1465 tag-order, which determines which completions appear at all).
1466 The groups named are shown in the given order; any other groups
1467 are shown in the order defined by the completion function.
1468 For example, to have names of builtin commands, shell functions
1470 and external commands appear in that order when completing in
1471 command position:
1472 zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:*' group-order \
1474 builtins functions commands
1475 groups A list of names of UNIX groups. If this is not set, group names
1477 are taken from the YP database or the file `/etc/group'.
1478 hidden If this is set to `true', matches for the given context will not
1480 be listed, although any description for the matches set with the
1481 format style will be shown. If it is set to `all', not even the
1482 description will be displayed.
1483 Note that the matches will still be completed; they are just not
1485 shown in the list. To avoid having matches considered as possi‐
1486 ble completions at all, the tag-order style can be modified as
1487 described below.
1488 hosts A list of names of hosts that should be completed. If this is
1490 not set, hostnames are taken from the file `/etc/hosts'.
1491 hosts-ports
1493 This style is used by commands that need or accept hostnames and
1494 network ports. The strings in the value should be of the form
1495 `host:port'. Valid ports are determined by the presence of
1496 hostnames; multiple ports for the same host may appear.
1497 ignore-line
1499 This is tested for each tag valid for the current completion.
1500 If it is set to `true', none of the words that are already on
1501 the line will be considered as possible completions. If it is
1502 set to `current', the word the cursor is on will not be consid‐
1503 ered as a possible completion. The value `current-shown' is
1504 similar but only applies if the list of completions is currently
1505 shown on the screen. Finally, if the style is set to `other',
1506 all words on the line except for the current one will be
1507 excluded from the possible completions.
1508 The values `current' and `current-shown' are a bit like the
1510 opposite of the accept-exact style: only strings with missing
1511 characters will be completed.
1512 Note that you almost certainly don't want to set this to `true'
1514 or `other' for a general context such as `:completion:*'. This
1515 is because it would disallow completion of, for example, options
1516 multiple times even if the command in question accepts the
1517 option more than once.
1518 ignore-parents
1520 The style is tested without a tag by the function completing
1521 pathnames in order to determine whether to ignore the names of
1522 directories already mentioned in the current word, or the name
1523 of the current working directory. The value must include one or
1524 both of the following strings:
1525 parent The name of any directory whose path is already contained
1527 in the word on the line is ignored. For example, when
1528 completing after foo/../, the directory foo will not be
1529 considered a valid completion.
1530 pwd The name of the current working directory will not be
1532 completed; hence, for example, completion after ../ will
1533 not use the name of the current directory.
1534 In addition, the value may include one or both of:
1536 .. Ignore the specified directories only when the word on
1538 the line contains the substring `../'.
1539 directory
1541 Ignore the specified directories only when names of
1542 directories are completed, not when completing names of
1543 files.
1544 Excluded values act in a similar fashion to values of the
1546 ignored-patterns style, so they can be restored to consideration
1547 by the _ignored completer.
1548 extra-verbose
1550 If set, the completion listing is more verbose at the cost of a
1551 probable decrease in completion speed. Completion performance
1552 will suffer if this style is set to `true'.
1553 ignored-patterns
1555 A list of patterns; any trial completion matching one of the
1556 patterns will be excluded from consideration. The _ignored com‐
1557 pleter can appear in the list of completers to restore the
1558 ignored matches. This is a more configurable version of the
1559 shell parameter $fignore.
1560 Note that the EXTENDED_GLOB option is set during the execution
1562 of completion functions, so the characters `#', `~' and `^' have
1563 special meanings in the patterns.
1564 insert This style is used by the _all_matches completer to decide
1566 whether to insert the list of all matches unconditionally
1567 instead of adding the list as another match.
1568 insert-ids
1570 When completing process IDs, for example as arguments to the
1571 kill and wait builtins the name of a command may be converted to
1572 the appropriate process ID. A problem arises when the process
1573 name typed is not unique. By default (or if this style is set
1574 explicitly to `menu') the name will be converted immediately to
1575 a set of possible IDs, and menu completion will be started to
1576 cycle through them.
1577 If the value of the style is `single', the shell will wait until
1579 the user has typed enough to make the command unique before con‐
1580 verting the name to an ID; attempts at completion will be unsuc‐
1581 cessful until that point. If the value is any other string,
1582 menu completion will be started when the string typed by the
1583 user is longer than the common prefix to the corresponding IDs.
1584 insert-tab
1586 If this is set to `true', the completion system will insert a
1587 TAB character (assuming that was used to start completion)
1588 instead of performing completion when there is no non-blank
1589 character to the left of the cursor. If it is set to `false',
1590 completion will be done even there.
1591 The value may also contain the substrings `pending' or `pend‐
1593 ing=val'. In this case, the typed character will be inserted
1594 instead of starting completion when there is unprocessed input
1595 pending. If a val is given, completion will not be done if
1596 there are at least that many characters of unprocessed input.
1597 This is often useful when pasting characters into a terminal.
1598 Note however, that it relies on the $PENDING special parameter
1599 from the zsh/zle module being set properly which is not guaran‐
1600 teed on all platforms.
1601 The default value of this style is `true' except for completion
1603 within vared builtin command where it is `false'.
1604 insert-unambiguous
1606 This is used by the _match and _approximate completers. These
1607 completers are often used with menu completion since the word
1608 typed may bear little resemblance to the final completion. How‐
1609 ever, if this style is `true', the completer will start menu
1610 completion only if it could find no unambiguous initial string
1611 at least as long as the original string typed by the user.
1612 In the case of the _approximate completer, the completer field
1614 in the context will already have been set to one of correct-num
1615 or approximate-num, where num is the number of errors that were
1616 accepted.
1617 In the case of the _match completer, the style may also be set
1619 to the string `pattern'. Then the pattern on the line is left
1620 unchanged if it does not match unambiguously.
1621 gain-privileges
1623 If set to true, this style enables the use of commands like sudo
1624 or doas to gain extra privileges when retrieving information for
1625 completion. This is only done when a command such as sudo
1626 appears on the command-line. To force the use of, e.g. sudo or
1627 to override any prefix that might be added due to gain-privi‐
1628 leges, the command style can be used with a value that begins
1629 with a hyphen.
1630 keep-prefix
1632 This style is used by the _expand completer. If it is `true',
1633 the completer will try to keep a prefix containing a tilde or
1634 parameter expansion. Hence, for example, the string `~/f*'
1635 would be expanded to `~/foo' instead of `/home/user/foo'. If
1636 the style is set to `changed' (the default), the prefix will
1637 only be left unchanged if there were other changes between the
1638 expanded words and the original word from the command line. Any
1639 other value forces the prefix to be expanded unconditionally.
1640 The behaviour of _expand when this style is `true' is to cause
1642 _expand to give up when a single expansion with the restored
1643 prefix is the same as the original; hence any remaining com‐
1644 pleters may be called.
1645 last-prompt
1647 This is a more flexible form of the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option.
1648 If it is `true', the completion system will try to return the
1649 cursor to the previous command line after displaying a comple‐
1650 tion list. It is tested for all tags valid for the current com‐
1651 pletion, then the default tag. The cursor will be moved back to
1652 the previous line if this style is `true' for all types of
1653 match. Note that unlike the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option this is
1654 independent of the numeric argument.
1655 known-hosts-files
1657 This style should contain a list of files to search for host
1658 names and (if the use-ip style is set) IP addresses in a format
1659 compatible with ssh known_hosts files. If it is not set, the
1660 files /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts and ~/.ssh/known_hosts are used.
1661 list This style is used by the _history_complete_word bindable com‐
1663 mand. If it is set to `true' it has no effect. If it is set to
1664 `false' matches will not be listed. This overrides the setting
1665 of the options controlling listing behaviour, in particular
1666 AUTO_LIST. The context always starts with `:completion:his‐
1667 tory-words'.
1668 list-colors
1670 If the zsh/complist module is loaded, this style can be used to
1671 set color specifications. This mechanism replaces the use of
1672 the ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters described in the sec‐
1673 tion `The zsh/complist Module' in zshmodules(1), but the syntax
1674 is the same.
1675 If this style is set for the default tag, the strings in the
1677 value are taken as specifications that are to be used every‐
1678 where. If it is set for other tags, the specifications are used
1679 only for matches of the type described by the tag. For this to
1680 work best, the group-name style must be set to an empty string.
1681 In addition to setting styles for specific tags, it is also pos‐
1683 sible to use group names specified explicitly by the group-name
1684 tag together with the `(group)' syntax allowed by the ZLS_COLORS
1685 and ZLS_COLOURS parameters and simply using the default tag.
1686 It is possible to use any color specifications already set up
1688 for the GNU version of the ls command:
1689 zstyle ':completion:*:default' list-colors \
1691 ${(s.:.)LS_COLORS}
1692 The default colors are the same as for the GNU ls command and
1694 can be obtained by setting the style to an empty string (i.e.
1695 '').
1696 list-dirs-first
1698 This is used by file completion. If set, directories to be com‐
1699 pleted are listed separately from and before completion for
1700 other files, regardless of tag ordering. In addition, the tag
1701 other-files is used in place of all-files for the remaining
1702 files, to indicate that no directories are presented with that
1703 tag.
1704 list-grouped
1706 If this style is `true' (the default), the completion system
1707 will try to make certain completion listings more compact by
1708 grouping matches. For example, options for commands that have
1709 the same description (shown when the verbose style is set to
1710 `true') will appear as a single entry. However, menu selection
1711 can be used to cycle through all the matches.
1712 list-packed
1714 This is tested for each tag valid in the current context as well
1715 as the default tag. If it is set to `true', the corresponding
1716 matches appear in listings as if the LIST_PACKED option were
1717 set. If it is set to `false', they are listed normally.
1718 list-prompt
1720 If this style is set for the default tag, completion lists that
1721 don't fit on the screen can be scrolled (see the description of
1722 the zsh/complist module in zshmodules(1)). The value, if not
1723 the empty string, will be displayed after every screenful and
1724 the shell will prompt for a key press; if the style is set to
1725 the empty string, a default prompt will be used.
1726 The value may contain the escape sequences: `%l' or `%L', which
1728 will be replaced by the number of the last line displayed and
1729 the total number of lines; `%m' or `%M', the number of the last
1730 match shown and the total number of matches; and `%p' and `%P',
1731 `Top' when at the beginning of the list, `Bottom' when at the
1732 end and the position shown as a percentage of the total length
1733 otherwise. In each case the form with the uppercase letter will
1734 be replaced by a string of fixed width, padded to the right
1735 with spaces, while the lowercase form will be replaced by a
1736 variable width string. As in other prompt strings, the escape
1737 sequences `%S', `%s', `%B', `%b', `%U', `%u' for entering and
1738 leaving the display modes standout, bold and underline, and
1739 `%F', `%f', `%K', `%k' for changing the foreground background
1740 colour, are also available, as is the form `%{...%}' for enclos‐
1741 ing escape sequences which display with zero (or, with a numeric
1742 argument, some other) width.
1743 After deleting this prompt the variable LISTPROMPT should be
1745 unset for the removal to take effect.
1746 list-rows-first
1748 This style is tested in the same way as the list-packed style
1749 and determines whether matches are to be listed in a rows-first
1750 fashion as if the LIST_ROWS_FIRST option were set.
1751 list-suffixes
1753 This style is used by the function that completes filenames. If
1754 it is `true', and completion is attempted on a string containing
1755 multiple partially typed pathname components, all ambiguous com‐
1756 ponents will be shown. Otherwise, completion stops at the first
1757 ambiguous component.
1758 list-separator
1760 The value of this style is used in completion listing to sepa‐
1761 rate the string to complete from a description when possible
1762 (e.g. when completing options). It defaults to `--' (two
1763 hyphens).
1764 local This is for use with functions that complete URLs for which the
1766 corresponding files are available directly from the file system.
1767 Its value should consist of three strings: a hostname, the path
1768 to the default web pages for the server, and the directory name
1769 used by a user placing web pages within their home area.
1770 For example:
1772 zstyle ':completion:*' local toast \
1774 /var/http/public/toast public_html
1775 Completion after `http://toast/stuff/' will look for files in
1777 the directory /var/http/public/toast/stuff, while completion
1778 after `http://toast/~yousir/' will look for files in the direc‐
1779 tory ~yousir/public_html.
1780 mail-directory
1782 If set, zsh will assume that mailbox files can be found in the
1783 directory specified. It defaults to `~/Mail'.
1784 match-original
1786 This is used by the _match completer. If it is set to only,
1787 _match will try to generate matches without inserting a `*' at
1788 the cursor position. If set to any other non-empty value, it
1789 will first try to generate matches without inserting the `*' and
1790 if that yields no matches, it will try again with the `*'
1791 inserted. If it is unset or set to the empty string, matching
1792 will only be performed with the `*' inserted.
1793 matcher
1795 This style is tested separately for each tag valid in the cur‐
1796 rent context. Its value is placed before any match specifica‐
1797 tions given by the matcher-list style so can override them via
1798 the use of an x: specification. The value should be in the form
1799 described in the section `Completion Matching Control' in zsh‐
1800 compwid(1). For examples of this, see the description of the
1801 tag-order style.
1802 For notes comparing the use of this and the matcher-list style,
1804 see under the description of the tag-order style.
1805 matcher-list
1807 This style can be set to a list of match specifications that are
1808 to be applied everywhere. Match specifications are described in
1809 the section `Completion Matching Control' in zshcompwid(1). The
1810 completion system will try them one after another for each com‐
1811 pleter selected. For example, to try first simple completion
1812 and, if that generates no matches, case-insensitive completion:
1813 zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
1815 By default each specification replaces the previous one; how‐
1817 ever, if a specification is prefixed with +, it is added to the
1818 existing list. Hence it is possible to create increasingly gen‐
1819 eral specifications without repetition:
1820 zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list \
1822 '' '+m:{a-z}={A-Z}' '+m:{A-Z}={a-z}'
1823 It is possible to create match specifications valid for particu‐
1825 lar completers by using the third field of the context. This
1826 applies only to completers that override the global
1827 matcher-list, which as of this writing includes only _prefix and
1828 _ignored. For example, to use the completers _complete and
1829 _prefix but allow case-insensitive completion only with _com‐
1830 plete:
1831 zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _prefix
1833 zstyle ':completion:*:complete:*:*:*' matcher-list \
1834 '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
1835 User-defined names, as explained for the completer style, are
1837 available. This makes it possible to try the same completer
1838 more than once with different match specifications each time.
1839 For example, to try normal completion without a match specifica‐
1840 tion, then normal completion with case-insensitive matching,
1841 then correction, and finally partial-word completion:
1842 zstyle ':completion:*' completer \
1844 _complete _correct _complete:foo
1845 zstyle ':completion:*:complete:*:*:*' matcher-list \
1846 '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
1847 zstyle ':completion:*:foo:*:*:*' matcher-list \
1848 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z} r:|[-_./]=* r:|=*'
1849 If the style is unset in any context no match specification is
1851 applied. Note also that some completers such as _correct and
1852 _approximate do not use the match specifications at all, though
1853 these completers will only ever be called once even if the
1854 matcher-list contains more than one element.
1855 Where multiple specifications are useful, note that the entire
1857 completion is done for each element of matcher-list, which can
1858 quickly reduce the shell's performance. As a rough rule of
1859 thumb, one to three strings will give acceptable performance.
1860 On the other hand, putting multiple space-separated values into
1861 the same string does not have an appreciable impact on perfor‐
1862 mance.
1863 If there is no current matcher or it is empty, and the option
1865 NO_CASE_GLOB is in effect, the matching for files is performed
1866 case-insensitively in any case. However, any matcher must
1867 explicitly specify case-insensitive matching if that is
1868 required.
1869 For notes comparing the use of this and the matcher style, see
1871 under the description of the tag-order style.
1872 max-errors
1874 This is used by the _approximate and _correct completer func‐
1875 tions to determine the maximum number of errors to allow. The
1876 completer will try to generate completions by first allowing one
1877 error, then two errors, and so on, until either a match or
1878 matches were found or the maximum number of errors given by this
1879 style has been reached.
1880 If the value for this style contains the string `numeric', the
1882 completer function will take any numeric argument as the maximum
1883 number of errors allowed. For example, with
1884 zstyle ':completion:*:approximate:::' max-errors 2 numeric
1886 two errors are allowed if no numeric argument is given, but with
1888 a numeric argument of six (as in `ESC-6 TAB'), up to six errors
1889 are accepted. Hence with a value of `0 numeric', no correcting
1890 completion will be attempted unless a numeric argument is given.
1891 If the value contains the string `not-numeric', the completer
1893 will not try to generate corrected completions when given a
1894 numeric argument, so in this case the number given should be
1895 greater than zero. For example, `2 not-numeric' specifies that
1896 correcting completion with two errors will usually be performed,
1897 but if a numeric argument is given, correcting completion will
1898 not be performed.
1899 The default value for this style is `2 numeric'.
1901 max-matches-width
1903 This style is used to determine the trade off between the width
1904 of the display used for matches and the width used for their
1905 descriptions when the verbose style is in effect. The value
1906 gives the number of display columns to reserve for the matches.
1907 The default is half the width of the screen.
1908 This has the most impact when several matches have the same
1910 description and so will be grouped together. Increasing the
1911 style will allow more matches to be grouped together; decreasing
1912 it will allow more of the description to be visible.
1913 menu If this is `true' in the context of any of the tags defined for
1915 the current completion menu completion will be used. The value
1916 for a specific tag will take precedence over that for the
1917 `default' tag.
1918 If none of the values found in this way is `true' but at least
1920 one is set to `auto', the shell behaves as if the AUTO_MENU
1921 option is set.
1922 If one of the values is explicitly set to `false', menu comple‐
1924 tion will be explicitly turned off, overriding the MENU_COMPLETE
1925 option and other settings.
1926 In the form `yes=num', where `yes' may be any of the `true' val‐
1928 ues (`yes', `true', `on' and `1'), menu completion will be
1929 turned on if there are at least num matches. In the form
1930 `yes=long', menu completion will be turned on if the list does
1931 not fit on the screen. This does not activate menu completion
1932 if the widget normally only lists completions, but menu comple‐
1933 tion can be activated in that case with the value
1934 `yes=long-list' (Typically, the value `select=long-list'
1935 described later is more useful as it provides control over
1936 scrolling.)
1937 Similarly, with any of the `false' values (as in `no=10'), menu
1939 completion will not be used if there are num or more matches.
1940 The value of this widget also controls menu selection, as imple‐
1942 mented by the zsh/complist module. The following values may
1943 appear either alongside or instead of the values above.
1944 If the value contains the string `select', menu selection will
1946 be started unconditionally.
1947 In the form `select=num', menu selection will only be started if
1949 there are at least num matches. If the values for more than one
1950 tag provide a number, the smallest number is taken.
1951 Menu selection can be turned off explicitly by defining a value
1953 containing the string`no-select'.
1954 It is also possible to start menu selection only if the list of
1956 matches does not fit on the screen by using the value
1957 `select=long'. To start menu selection even if the current wid‐
1958 get only performs listing, use the value `select=long-list'.
1959 To turn on menu completion or menu selection when there are a
1961 certain number of matches or the list of matches does not fit on
1962 the screen, both of `yes=' and `select=' may be given twice,
1963 once with a number and once with `long' or `long-list'.
1964 Finally, it is possible to activate two special modes of menu
1966 selection. The word `interactive' in the value causes interac‐
1967 tive mode to be entered immediately when menu selection is
1968 started; see the description of the zsh/complist module in zsh‐
1969 modules(1) for a description of interactive mode. Including the
1970 string `search' does the same for incremental search mode. To
1971 select backward incremental search, include the string
1972 `search-backward'.
1973 muttrc If set, gives the location of the mutt configuration file. It
1975 defaults to `~/.muttrc'.
1976 numbers
1978 This is used with the jobs tag. If it is `true', the shell will
1979 complete job numbers instead of the shortest unambiguous prefix
1980 of the job command text. If the value is a number, job numbers
1981 will only be used if that many words from the job descriptions
1982 are required to resolve ambiguities. For example, if the value
1983 is `1', strings will only be used if all jobs differ in the
1984 first word on their command lines.
1985 old-list
1987 This is used by the _oldlist completer. If it is set to
1988 `always', then standard widgets which perform listing will
1989 retain the current list of matches, however they were generated;
1990 this can be turned off explicitly with the value `never', giving
1991 the behaviour without the _oldlist completer. If the style is
1992 unset, or any other value, then the existing list of completions
1993 is displayed if it is not already; otherwise, the standard com‐
1994 pletion list is generated; this is the default behaviour of
1995 _oldlist. However, if there is an old list and this style con‐
1996 tains the name of the completer function that generated the
1997 list, then the old list will be used even if it was generated by
1998 a widget which does not do listing.
1999 For example, suppose you type ^Xc to use the _correct_word wid‐
2001 get, which generates a list of corrections for the word under
2002 the cursor. Usually, typing ^D would generate a standard list
2003 of completions for the word on the command line, and show that.
2004 With _oldlist, it will instead show the list of corrections
2005 already generated.
2006 As another example consider the _match completer: with the
2008 insert-unambiguous style set to `true' it inserts only a common
2009 prefix string, if there is any. However, this may remove parts
2010 of the original pattern, so that further completion could pro‐
2011 duce more matches than on the first attempt. By using the
2012 _oldlist completer and setting this style to _match, the list of
2013 matches generated on the first attempt will be used again.
2014 old-matches
2016 This is used by the _all_matches completer to decide if an old
2017 list of matches should be used if one exists. This is selected
2018 by one of the `true' values or by the string `only'. If the
2019 value is `only', _all_matches will only use an old list and
2020 won't have any effect on the list of matches currently being
2021 generated.
2022 If this style is set it is generally unwise to call the
2024 _all_matches completer unconditionally. One possible use is for
2025 either this style or the completer style to be defined with the
2026 -e option to zstyle to make the style conditional.
2027 old-menu
2029 This is used by the _oldlist completer. It controls how menu
2030 completion behaves when a completion has already been inserted
2031 and the user types a standard completion key such as TAB. The
2032 default behaviour of _oldlist is that menu completion always
2033 continues with the existing list of completions. If this style
2034 is set to `false', however, a new completion is started if the
2035 old list was generated by a different completion command; this
2036 is the behaviour without the _oldlist completer.
2037 For example, suppose you type ^Xc to generate a list of correc‐
2039 tions, and menu completion is started in one of the usual ways.
2040 Usually, or with this style set to `false', typing TAB at this
2041 point would start trying to complete the line as it now appears.
2042 With _oldlist, it instead continues to cycle through the list of
2043 corrections.
2044 original
2046 This is used by the _approximate and _correct completers to
2047 decide if the original string should be added as a possible com‐
2048 pletion. Normally, this is done only if there are at least two
2049 possible corrections, but if this style is set to `true', it is
2050 always added. Note that the style will be examined with the
2051 completer field in the context name set to correct-num or
2052 approximate-num, where num is the number of errors that were
2053 accepted.
2054 packageset
2056 This style is used when completing arguments of the Debian
2057 `dpkg' program. It contains an override for the default package
2058 set for a given context. For example,
2059 zstyle ':completion:*:complete:dpkg:option--status-1:*' \
2061 packageset avail
2062 causes available packages, rather than only installed packages,
2064 to be completed for `dpkg --status'.
2065 path The function that completes color names uses this style with the
2067 colors tag. The value should be the pathname of a file contain‐
2068 ing color names in the format of an X11 rgb.txt file. If the
2069 style is not set but this file is found in one of various stan‐
2070 dard locations it will be used as the default.
2071 path-completion
2073 This is used by filename completion. By default, filename com‐
2074 pletion examines all components of a path to see if there are
2075 completions of that component. For example, /u/b/z can be com‐
2076 pleted to /usr/bin/zsh. Explicitly setting this style to
2077 `false' inhibits this behaviour for path components up to the /
2078 before the cursor; this overrides the setting of
2079 accept-exact-dirs.
2080 Even with the style set to `false', it is still possible to com‐
2082 plete multiple paths by setting the option COMPLETE_IN_WORD and
2083 moving the cursor back to the first component in the path to be
2084 completed. For example, /u/b/z can be completed to /usr/bin/zsh
2085 if the cursor is after the /u.
2086 pine-directory
2088 If set, specifies the directory containing PINE mailbox files.
2089 There is no default, since recursively searching this directory
2090 is inconvenient for anyone who doesn't use PINE.
2091 ports A list of Internet service names (network ports) to complete.
2093 If this is not set, service names are taken from the file
2094 `/etc/services'.
2095 prefix-hidden
2097 This is used for certain completions which share a common pre‐
2098 fix, for example command options beginning with dashes. If it
2099 is `true', the prefix will not be shown in the list of matches.
2100 The default value for this style is `false'.
2102 prefix-needed
2104 This style is also relevant for matches with a common prefix.
2105 If it is set to `true' this common prefix must be typed by the
2106 user to generate the matches.
2107 The style is applicable to the options, signals, jobs, func‐
2109 tions, and parameters completion tags.
2110 For command options, this means that the initial `-', `+', or
2112 `--' must be typed explicitly before option names will be com‐
2113 pleted.
2114 For signals, an initial `-' is required before signal names will
2116 be completed.
2117 For jobs, an initial `%' is required before job names will be
2119 completed.
2120 For function and parameter names, an initial `_' or `.' is
2122 required before function or parameter names starting with those
2123 characters will be completed.
2124 The default value for this style is `false' for function and
2126 parameter completions, and `true' otherwise.
2127 preserve-prefix
2129 This style is used when completing path names. Its value should
2130 be a pattern matching an initial prefix of the word to complete
2131 that should be left unchanged under all circumstances. For
2132 example, on some Unices an initial `//' (double slash) has a
2133 special meaning; setting this style to the string `//' will pre‐
2134 serve it. As another example, setting this style to `?:/' under
2135 Cygwin would allow completion after `a:/...' and so on.
2136 range This is used by the _history completer and the _history_com‐
2138 plete_word bindable command to decide which words should be com‐
2139 pleted.
2140 If it is a single number, only the last N words from the history
2142 will be completed.
2143 If it is a range of the form `max:slice', the last slice words
2145 will be completed; then if that yields no matches, the slice
2146 words before those will be tried and so on. This process stops
2147 either when at least one match has been found, or max words have
2148 been tried.
2149 The default is to complete all words from the history at once.
2151 recursive-files
2153 If this style is set, its value is an array of patterns to be
2154 tested against `$PWD/': note the trailing slash, which allows
2155 directories in the pattern to be delimited unambiguously by
2156 including slashes on both sides. If an ordinary file completion
2157 fails and the word on the command line does not yet have a
2158 directory part to its name, the style is retrieved using the
2159 same tag as for the completion just attempted, then the elements
2160 tested against $PWD/ in turn. If one matches, then the shell
2161 reattempts completion by prepending the word on the command line
2162 with each directory in the expansion of **/*(/) in turn. Typi‐
2163 cally the elements of the style will be set to restrict the num‐
2164 ber of directories beneath the current one to a manageable num‐
2165 ber, for example `*/.git/*'.
2166 For example,
2168 zstyle ':completion:*' recursive-files '*/zsh/*'
2170 If the current directory is /home/pws/zsh/Src, then zle_trTAB
2172 can be completed to Zle/zle_tricky.c.
2173 regular
2175 This style is used by the _expand_alias completer and bindable
2176 command. If set to `true' (the default), regular aliases will
2177 be expanded but only in command position. If it is set to
2178 `false', regular aliases will never be expanded. If it is set
2179 to `always', regular aliases will be expanded even if not in
2180 command position.
2181 rehash If this is set when completing external commands, the internal
2183 list (hash) of commands will be updated for each search by issu‐
2184 ing the rehash command. There is a speed penalty for this which
2185 is only likely to be noticeable when directories in the path
2186 have slow file access.
2187 remote-access
2189 If set to `false', certain commands will be prevented from mak‐
2190 ing Internet connections to retrieve remote information. This
2191 includes the completion for the CVS command.
2192 It is not always possible to know if connections are in fact to
2194 a remote site, so some may be prevented unnecessarily.
2195 remove-all-dups
2197 The _history_complete_word bindable command and the _history
2198 completer use this to decide if all duplicate matches should be
2199 removed, rather than just consecutive duplicates.
2200 select-prompt
2202 If this is set for the default tag, its value will be displayed
2203 during menu selection (see the menu style above) when the com‐
2204 pletion list does not fit on the screen as a whole. The same
2205 escapes as for the list-prompt style are understood, except that
2206 the numbers refer to the match or line the mark is on. A
2207 default prompt is used when the value is the empty string.
2208 select-scroll
2210 This style is tested for the default tag and determines how a
2211 completion list is scrolled during a menu selection (see the
2212 menu style above) when the completion list does not fit on the
2213 screen as a whole. If the value is `0' (zero), the list is
2214 scrolled by half-screenfuls; if it is a positive integer, the
2215 list is scrolled by the given number of lines; if it is a nega‐
2216 tive number, the list is scrolled by a screenful minus the abso‐
2217 lute value of the given number of lines. The default is to
2218 scroll by single lines.
2219 separate-sections
2221 This style is used with the manuals tag when completing names of
2222 manual pages. If it is `true', entries for different sections
2223 are added separately using tag names of the form `manual.X',
2224 where X is the section number. When the group-name style is
2225 also in effect, pages from different sections will appear sepa‐
2226 rately. This style is also used similarly with the words style
2227 when completing words for the dict command. It allows words from
2228 different dictionary databases to be added separately. The
2229 default for this style is `false'.
2230 show-ambiguity
2232 If the zsh/complist module is loaded, this style can be used to
2233 highlight the first ambiguous character in completion lists. The
2234 value is either a color indication such as those supported by
2235 the list-colors style or, with a value of `true', a default of
2236 underlining is selected. The highlighting is only applied if the
2237 completion display strings correspond to the actual matches.
2238 show-completer
2240 Tested whenever a new completer is tried. If it is `true', the
2241 completion system outputs a progress message in the listing area
2242 showing what completer is being tried. The message will be
2243 overwritten by any output when completions are found and is
2244 removed after completion is finished.
2245 single-ignored
2247 This is used by the _ignored completer when there is only one
2248 match. If its value is `show', the single match will be dis‐
2249 played but not inserted. If the value is `menu', then the sin‐
2250 gle match and the original string are both added as matches and
2251 menu completion is started, making it easy to select either of
2252 them.
2253 sort This allows the standard ordering of matches to be overridden.
2255 If its value is `true' or `false', sorting is enabled or dis‐
2257 abled. Additionally the values associated with the `-o' option
2258 to compadd can also be listed: match, nosort, numeric, reverse.
2259 If it is not set for the context, the standard behaviour of the
2260 calling widget is used.
2261 The style is tested first against the full context including the
2263 tag, and if that fails to produce a value against the context
2264 without the tag.
2265 In many cases where a calling widget explicitly selects a par‐
2267 ticular ordering in lieu of the default, a value of `true' is
2268 not honoured. An example of where this is not the case is for
2269 command history where the default of sorting matches chronologi‐
2270 cally may be overridden by setting the style to `true'.
2271 In the _expand completer, if it is set to `true', the expansions
2273 generated will always be sorted. If it is set to `menu', then
2274 the expansions are only sorted when they are offered as single
2275 strings but not in the string containing all possible expan‐
2276 sions.
2277 special-dirs
2279 Normally, the completion code will not produce the directory
2280 names `.' and `..' as possible completions. If this style is
2281 set to `true', it will add both `.' and `..' as possible comple‐
2282 tions; if it is set to `..', only `..' will be added.
2283 The following example sets special-dirs to `..' when the current
2285 prefix is empty, is a single `.', or consists only of a path
2286 beginning with `../'. Otherwise the value is `false'.
2287 zstyle -e ':completion:*' special-dirs \
2289 '[[ $PREFIX = (../)#(|.|..) ]] && reply=(..)'
2290 squeeze-slashes
2292 If set to `true', sequences of slashes in filename paths (for
2293 example in `foo//bar') will be treated as a single slash. This
2294 is the usual behaviour of UNIX paths. However, by default the
2295 file completion function behaves as if there were a `*' between
2296 the slashes.
2297 stop If set to `true', the _history_complete_word bindable command
2299 will stop once when reaching the beginning or end of the his‐
2300 tory. Invoking _history_complete_word will then wrap around to
2301 the opposite end of the history. If this style is set to
2302 `false' (the default), _history_complete_word will loop immedi‐
2303 ately as in a menu completion.
2304 strip-comments
2306 If set to `true', this style causes non-essential comment text
2307 to be removed from completion matches. Currently it is only
2308 used when completing e-mail addresses where it removes any dis‐
2309 play name from the addresses, cutting them down to plain
2310 user@host form.
2311 subst-globs-only
2313 This is used by the _expand completer. If it is set to `true',
2314 the expansion will only be used if it resulted from globbing;
2315 hence, if expansions resulted from the use of the substitute
2316 style described below, but these were not further changed by
2317 globbing, the expansions will be rejected.
2318 The default for this style is `false'.
2320 substitute
2322 This boolean style controls whether the _expand completer will
2323 first try to expand all substitutions in the string (such as
2324 `$(...)' and `${...}').
2325 The default is `true'.
2327 suffix This is used by the _expand completer if the word starts with a
2329 tilde or contains a parameter expansion. If it is set to
2330 `true', the word will only be expanded if it doesn't have a suf‐
2331 fix, i.e. if it is something like `~foo' or `$foo' rather than
2332 `~foo/' or `$foo/bar', unless that suffix itself contains char‐
2333 acters eligible for expansion. The default for this style is
2334 `true'.
2335 tag-order
2337 This provides a mechanism for sorting how the tags available in
2338 a particular context will be used.
2339 The values for the style are sets of space-separated lists of
2341 tags. The tags in each value will be tried at the same time; if
2342 no match is found, the next value is used. (See the file-pat‐
2343 terns style for an exception to this behavior.)
2344 For example:
2346 zstyle ':completion:*:complete:-command-:*:*' tag-order \
2348 'commands functions'
2349 specifies that completion in command position first offers
2351 external commands and shell functions. Remaining tags will be
2352 tried if no completions are found.
2353 In addition to tag names, each string in the value may take one
2355 of the following forms:
2356 - If any value consists of only a hyphen, then only the
2358 tags specified in the other values are generated. Nor‐
2359 mally all tags not explicitly selected are tried last if
2360 the specified tags fail to generate any matches. This
2361 means that a single value consisting only of a single
2362 hyphen turns off completion.
2363 ! tags...
2365 A string starting with an exclamation mark specifies
2366 names of tags that are not to be used. The effect is the
2367 same as if all other possible tags for the context had
2368 been listed.
2369 tag:label ...
2371 Here, tag is one of the standard tags and label is an
2372 arbitrary name. Matches are generated as normal but the
2373 name label is used in contexts instead of tag. This is
2374 not useful in words starting with !.
2375 If the label starts with a hyphen, the tag is prepended
2377 to the label to form the name used for lookup. This can
2378 be used to make the completion system try a certain tag
2379 more than once, supplying different style settings for
2380 each attempt; see below for an example.
2381 tag:label:description
2383 As before, but description will replace the `%d' in the
2384 value of the format style instead of the default descrip‐
2385 tion supplied by the completion function. Spaces in the
2386 description must be quoted with a backslash. A `%d'
2387 appearing in description is replaced with the description
2388 given by the completion function.
2389 In any of the forms above the tag may be a pattern or several
2391 patterns in the form `{pat1,pat2...}'. In this case all match‐
2392 ing tags will be used except for any given explicitly in the
2393 same string.
2394 One use of these features is to try one tag more than once, set‐
2396 ting other styles differently on each attempt, but still to use
2397 all the other tags without having to repeat them all. For exam‐
2398 ple, to make completion of function names in command position
2399 ignore all the completion functions starting with an underscore
2400 the first time completion is tried:
2401 zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:*' tag-order \
2403 'functions:-non-comp *' functions
2404 zstyle ':completion:*:functions-non-comp' \
2405 ignored-patterns '_*'
2406 On the first attempt, all tags will be offered but the functions
2408 tag will be replaced by functions-non-comp. The ignored-pat‐
2409 terns style is set for this tag to exclude functions starting
2410 with an underscore. If there are no matches, the second value
2411 of the tag-order style is used which completes functions using
2412 the default tag, this time presumably including all function
2413 names.
2414 The matches for one tag can be split into different groups. For
2416 example:
2417 zstyle ':completion:*' tag-order \
2419 'options:-long:long\ options
2420 options:-short:short\ options
2421 options:-single-letter:single\ letter\ options'
2422 zstyle ':completion:*:options-long' \
2423 ignored-patterns '[-+](|-|[^-]*)'
2424 zstyle ':completion:*:options-short' \
2425 ignored-patterns '--*' '[-+]?'
2426 zstyle ':completion:*:options-single-letter' \
2427 ignored-patterns '???*'
2428 With the group-names style set, options beginning with `--',
2430 options beginning with a single `-' or `+' but containing multi‐
2431 ple characters, and single-letter options will be displayed in
2432 separate groups with different descriptions.
2433 Another use of patterns is to try multiple match specifications
2435 one after another. The matcher-list style offers something sim‐
2436 ilar, but it is tested very early in the completion system and
2437 hence can't be set for single commands nor for more specific
2438 contexts. Here is how to try normal completion without any
2439 match specification and, if that generates no matches, try again
2440 with case-insensitive matching, restricting the effect to argu‐
2441 ments of the command foo:
2442 zstyle ':completion:*:*:foo:*:*' tag-order '*' '*:-case'
2444 zstyle ':completion:*-case' matcher 'm:{a-z}={A-Z}'
2445 First, all the tags offered when completing after foo are tried
2447 using the normal tag name. If that generates no matches, the
2448 second value of tag-order is used, which tries all tags again
2449 except that this time each has -case appended to its name for
2450 lookup of styles. Hence this time the value for the matcher
2451 style from the second call to zstyle in the example is used to
2452 make completion case-insensitive.
2453 It is possible to use the -e option of the zstyle builtin com‐
2455 mand to specify conditions for the use of particular tags. For
2456 example:
2457 zstyle -e '*:-command-:*' tag-order '
2459 if [[ -n $PREFIX$SUFFIX ]]; then
2460 reply=( )
2461 else
2462 reply=( - )
2463 fi'
2464 Completion in command position will be attempted only if the
2466 string typed so far is not empty. This is tested using the PRE‐
2467 FIX special parameter; see zshcompwid for a description of
2468 parameters which are special inside completion widgets. Setting
2469 reply to an empty array provides the default behaviour of trying
2470 all tags at once; setting it to an array containing only a
2471 hyphen disables the use of all tags and hence of all comple‐
2472 tions.
2473 If no tag-order style has been defined for a context, the
2475 strings `(|*-)argument-* (|*-)option-* values' and `options'
2476 plus all tags offered by the completion function will be used to
2477 provide a sensible default behavior that causes arguments
2478 (whether normal command arguments or arguments of options) to be
2479 completed before option names for most commands.
2480 urls This is used together with the urls tag by functions completing
2482 URLs.
2483 If the value consists of more than one string, or if the only
2485 string does not name a file or directory, the strings are used
2486 as the URLs to complete.
2487 If the value contains only one string which is the name of a
2489 normal file the URLs are taken from that file (where the URLs
2490 may be separated by white space or newlines).
2491 Finally, if the only string in the value names a directory, the
2493 directory hierarchy rooted at this directory gives the comple‐
2494 tions. The top level directory should be the file access
2495 method, such as `http', `ftp', `bookmark' and so on. In many
2496 cases the next level of directories will be a filename. The
2497 directory hierarchy can descend as deep as necessary.
2498 For example,
2500 zstyle ':completion:*' urls ~/.urls
2502 mkdir -p ~/.urls/ftp/ftp.zsh.org/pub
2503 allows completion of all the components of the URL
2505 ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub after suitable commands such as `netscape'
2506 or `lynx'. Note, however, that access methods and files are
2507 completed separately, so if the hosts style is set hosts can be
2508 completed without reference to the urls style.
2509 See the description in the function _urls itself for more infor‐
2511 mation (e.g. `more $^fpath/_urls(N)').
2512 use-cache
2514 If this is set, the completion caching layer is activated for
2515 any completions which use it (via the _store_cache,
2516 _retrieve_cache, and _cache_invalid functions). The directory
2517 containing the cache files can be changed with the cache-path
2518 style.
2519 use-compctl
2521 If this style is set to a string not equal to false, 0, no, and
2522 off, the completion system may use any completion specifications
2523 defined with the compctl builtin command. If the style is
2524 unset, this is done only if the zsh/compctl module is loaded.
2525 The string may also contain the substring `first' to use comple‐
2526 tions defined with `compctl -T', and the substring `default' to
2527 use the completion defined with `compctl -D'.
2528 Note that this is only intended to smooth the transition from
2530 compctl to the new completion system and may disappear in the
2531 future.
2532 Note also that the definitions from compctl will only be used if
2534 there is no specific completion function for the command in
2535 question. For example, if there is a function _foo to complete
2536 arguments to the command foo, compctl will never be invoked for
2537 foo. However, the compctl version will be tried if foo only
2538 uses default completion.
2539 use-ip By default, the function _hosts that completes host names strips
2541 IP addresses from entries read from host databases such as NIS
2542 and ssh files. If this style is `true', the corresponding IP
2543 addresses can be completed as well. This style is not use in
2544 any context where the hosts style is set; note also it must be
2545 set before the cache of host names is generated (typically the
2546 first completion attempt).
2547 users This may be set to a list of usernames to be completed. If it
2549 is not set all usernames will be completed. Note that if it is
2550 set only that list of users will be completed; this is because
2551 on some systems querying all users can take a prohibitive amount
2552 of time.
2553 users-hosts
2555 The values of this style should be of the form `user@host' or
2556 `user:host'. It is used for commands that need pairs of user-
2557 and hostnames. These commands will complete usernames from this
2558 style (only), and will restrict subsequent hostname completion
2559 to hosts paired with that user in one of the values of the
2560 style.
2561 It is possible to group values for sets of commands which allow
2563 a remote login, such as rlogin and ssh, by using the my-accounts
2564 tag. Similarly, values for sets of commands which usually refer
2565 to the accounts of other people, such as talk and finger, can be
2566 grouped by using the other-accounts tag. More ambivalent com‐
2567 mands may use the accounts tag.
2568 users-hosts-ports
2570 Like users-hosts but used for commands like telnet and contain‐
2571 ing strings of the form `user@host:port'.
2572 verbose
2574 If set, as it is by default, the completion listing is more ver‐
2575 bose. In particular many commands show descriptions for options
2576 if this style is `true'.
2577 word This is used by the _list completer, which prevents the inser‐
2579 tion of completions until a second completion attempt when the
2580 line has not changed. The normal way of finding out if the line
2581 has changed is to compare its entire contents between the two
2582 occasions. If this style is `true', the comparison is instead
2583 performed only on the current word. Hence if completion is per‐
2584 formed on another word with the same contents, completion will
2585 not be delayed.
2586
2588 The initialization script compinit redefines all the widgets which per‐
2589 form completion to call the supplied widget function _main_complete.
2590 This function acts as a wrapper calling the so-called `completer' func‐
2591 tions that generate matches. If _main_complete is called with argu‐
2592 ments, these are taken as the names of completer functions to be called
2593 in the order given. If no arguments are given, the set of functions to
2594 try is taken from the completer style. For example, to use normal com‐
2595 pletion and correction if that doesn't generate any matches:
2596 zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _correct
2598 after calling compinit. The default value for this style is `_complete
2600 _ignored', i.e. normally only ordinary completion is tried, first with
2601 the effect of the ignored-patterns style and then without it. The
2602 _main_complete function uses the return status of the completer func‐
2603 tions to decide if other completers should be called. If the return
2604 status is zero, no other completers are tried and the _main_complete
2605 function returns.
2606 If the first argument to _main_complete is a single hyphen, the argu‐
2608 ments will not be taken as names of completers. Instead, the second
2609 argument gives a name to use in the completer field of the context and
2610 the other arguments give a command name and arguments to call to gener‐
2611 ate the matches.
2612 The following completer functions are contained in the distribution,
2614 although users may write their own. Note that in contexts the leading
2615 underscore is stripped, for example basic completion is performed in
2616 the context `:completion::complete:...'.
2617 _all_matches
2619 This completer can be used to add a string consisting of all
2620 other matches. As it influences later completers it must appear
2621 as the first completer in the list. The list of all matches is
2622 affected by the avoid-completer and old-matches styles described
2623 above.
2624 It may be useful to use the _generic function described below to
2626 bind _all_matches to its own keystroke, for example:
2627 zle -C all-matches complete-word _generic
2629 bindkey '^Xa' all-matches
2630 zstyle ':completion:all-matches:*' old-matches only
2631 zstyle ':completion:all-matches::::' completer _all_matches
2632 Note that this does not generate completions by itself: first
2634 use any of the standard ways of generating a list of comple‐
2635 tions, then use ^Xa to show all matches. It is possible instead
2636 to add a standard completer to the list and request that the
2637 list of all matches should be directly inserted:
2638 zstyle ':completion:all-matches::::' completer \
2640 _all_matches _complete
2641 zstyle ':completion:all-matches:*' insert true
2642 In this case the old-matches style should not be set.
2644 _approximate
2646 This is similar to the basic _complete completer but allows the
2647 completions to undergo corrections. The maximum number of
2648 errors can be specified by the max-errors style; see the
2649 description of approximate matching in zshexpn(1) for how errors
2650 are counted. Normally this completer will only be tried after
2651 the normal _complete completer:
2652 zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _approximate
2654 This will give correcting completion if and only if normal com‐
2656 pletion yields no possible completions. When corrected comple‐
2657 tions are found, the completer will normally start menu comple‐
2658 tion allowing you to cycle through these strings.
2659 This completer uses the tags corrections and original when gen‐
2661 erating the possible corrections and the original string. The
2662 format style for the former may contain the additional sequences
2663 `%e' and `%o' which will be replaced by the number of errors
2664 accepted to generate the corrections and the original string,
2665 respectively.
2666 The completer progressively increases the number of errors
2668 allowed up to the limit by the max-errors style, hence if a com‐
2669 pletion is found with one error, no completions with two errors
2670 will be shown, and so on. It modifies the completer name in the
2671 context to indicate the number of errors being tried: on the
2672 first try the completer field contains `approximate-1', on the
2673 second try `approximate-2', and so on.
2674 When _approximate is called from another function, the number of
2676 errors to accept may be passed with the -a option. The argument
2677 is in the same format as the max-errors style, all in one
2678 string.
2679 Note that this completer (and the _correct completer mentioned
2681 below) can be quite expensive to call, especially when a large
2682 number of errors are allowed. One way to avoid this is to set
2683 up the completer style using the -e option to zstyle so that
2684 some completers are only used when completion is attempted a
2685 second time on the same string, e.g.:
2686 zstyle -e ':completion:*' completer '
2688 if [[ $_last_try != "$HISTNO$BUFFER$CURSOR" ]]; then
2689 _last_try="$HISTNO$BUFFER$CURSOR"
2690 reply=(_complete _match _prefix)
2691 else
2692 reply=(_ignored _correct _approximate)
2693 fi'
2694 This uses the HISTNO parameter and the BUFFER and CURSOR special
2696 parameters that are available inside zle and completion widgets
2697 to find out if the command line hasn't changed since the last
2698 time completion was tried. Only then are the _ignored, _correct
2699 and _approximate completers called.
2700 _canonical_paths [ -A var ] [ -N ] [ -MJV12nfX ] tag descr [ paths ...
2702 ]
2703 This completion function completes all paths given to it, and
2704 also tries to offer completions which point to the same file as
2705 one of the paths given (relative path when an absolute path is
2706 given, and vice versa; when ..'s are present in the word to be
2707 completed; and some paths got from symlinks).
2708 -A, if specified, takes the paths from the array variable speci‐
2710 fied. Paths can also be specified on the command line as shown
2711 above. -N, if specified, prevents canonicalizing the paths
2712 given before using them for completion, in case they are already
2713 so. The options -M, -J, -V, -1, -2, -n, -F, -X are passed to
2714 compadd.
2715 See _description for a description of tag and descr.
2717 _cmdambivalent
2719 Completes the remaining positional arguments as an external com‐
2720 mand. The external command and its arguments are completed as
2721 separate arguments (in a manner appropriate for completing
2722 /usr/bin/env) if there are two or more remaining positional
2723 arguments on the command line, and as a quoted command string
2724 (in the manner of system(...)) otherwise. See also _cmdstring
2725 and _precommand.
2726 This function takes no arguments.
2728 _cmdstring
2730 Completes an external command as a single argument, as for sys‐
2731 tem(...).
2732 _complete
2734 This completer generates all possible completions in a con‐
2735 text-sensitive manner, i.e. using the settings defined with the
2736 compdef function explained above and the current settings of all
2737 special parameters. This gives the normal completion behaviour.
2738 To complete arguments of commands, _complete uses the utility
2740 function _normal, which is in turn responsible for finding the
2741 particular function; it is described below. Various contexts of
2742 the form -context- are handled specifically. These are all men‐
2743 tioned above as possible arguments to the #compdef tag.
2744 Before trying to find a function for a specific context, _com‐
2746 plete checks if the parameter `compcontext' is set. Setting
2747 `compcontext' allows the usual completion dispatching to be
2748 overridden which is useful in places such as a function that
2749 uses vared for input. If it is set to an array, the elements are
2750 taken to be the possible matches which will be completed using
2751 the tag `values' and the description `value'. If it is set to an
2752 associative array, the keys are used as the possible completions
2753 and the values (if non-empty) are used as descriptions for the
2754 matches. If `compcontext' is set to a string containing colons,
2755 it should be of the form `tag:descr:action'. In this case the
2756 tag and descr give the tag and description to use and the action
2757 indicates what should be completed in one of the forms accepted
2758 by the _arguments utility function described below.
2759 Finally, if `compcontext' is set to a string without colons, the
2761 value is taken as the name of the context to use and the func‐
2762 tion defined for that context will be called. For this purpose,
2763 there is a special context named -command-line- that completes
2764 whole command lines (commands and their arguments). This is not
2765 used by the completion system itself but is nonetheless handled
2766 when explicitly called.
2767 _correct
2769 Generate corrections, but not completions, for the current word;
2770 this is similar to _approximate but will not allow any number of
2771 extra characters at the cursor as that completer does. The
2772 effect is similar to spell-checking. It is based on _approxi‐
2773 mate, but the completer field in the context name is correct.
2774 For example, with:
2776 zstyle ':completion:::::' completer \
2778 _complete _correct _approximate
2779 zstyle ':completion:*:correct:::' max-errors 2 not-numeric
2780 zstyle ':completion:*:approximate:::' max-errors 3 numeric
2781 correction will accept up to two errors. If a numeric argument
2783 is given, correction will not be performed, but correcting com‐
2784 pletion will be, and will accept as many errors as given by the
2785 numeric argument. Without a numeric argument, first correction
2786 and then correcting completion will be tried, with the first one
2787 accepting two errors and the second one accepting three errors.
2788 When _correct is called as a function, the number of errors to
2790 accept may be given following the -a option. The argument is in
2791 the same form a values to the accept style, all in one string.
2792 This completer function is intended to be used without the
2794 _approximate completer or, as in the example, just before it.
2795 Using it after the _approximate completer is useless since
2796 _approximate will at least generate the corrected strings gener‐
2797 ated by the _correct completer -- and probably more.
2798 _expand
2800 This completer function does not really perform completion, but
2801 instead checks if the word on the command line is eligible for
2802 expansion and, if it is, gives detailed control over how this
2803 expansion is done. For this to happen, the completion system
2804 needs to be invoked with complete-word, not expand-or-complete
2805 (the default binding for TAB), as otherwise the string will be
2806 expanded by the shell's internal mechanism before the completion
2807 system is started. Note also this completer should be called
2808 before the _complete completer function.
2809 The tags used when generating expansions are all-expansions for
2811 the string containing all possible expansions, expansions when
2812 adding the possible expansions as single matches and original
2813 when adding the original string from the line. The order in
2814 which these strings are generated, if at all, can be controlled
2815 by the group-order and tag-order styles, as usual.
2816 The format string for all-expansions and for expansions may con‐
2818 tain the sequence `%o' which will be replaced by the original
2819 string from the line.
2820 The kind of expansion to be tried is controlled by the substi‐
2822 tute, glob and subst-globs-only styles.
2823 It is also possible to call _expand as a function, in which case
2825 the different modes may be selected with options: -s for substi‐
2826 tute, -g for glob and -o for subst-globs-only.
2827 _expand_alias
2829 If the word the cursor is on is an alias, it is expanded and no
2830 other completers are called. The types of aliases which are to
2831 be expanded can be controlled with the styles regular, global
2832 and disabled.
2833 This function is also a bindable command, see the section `Bind‐
2835 able Commands' below.
2836 _extensions
2838 If the cursor follows the string `*.', filename extensions are
2839 completed. The extensions are taken from files in current direc‐
2840 tory or a directory specified at the beginning of the current
2841 word. For exact matches, completion continues to allow other
2842 completers such as _expand to expand the pattern. The standard
2843 add-space and prefix-hidden styles are observed.
2844 _external_pwds
2846 Completes current directories of other zsh processes belonging
2847 to the current user.
2848 This is intended to be used via _generic, bound to a custom key
2850 combination. Note that pattern matching is enabled so matching
2851 is performed similar to how it works with the _match completer.
2852 _history
2854 Complete words from the shell's command history. This com‐
2855 pleter can be controlled by the remove-all-dups, and sort styles
2856 as for the _history_complete_word bindable command, see the sec‐
2857 tion `Bindable Commands' below and the section `Completion Sys‐
2858 tem Configuration' above.
2859 _ignored
2861 The ignored-patterns style can be set to a list of patterns
2862 which are compared against possible completions; matching ones
2863 are removed. With this completer those matches can be rein‐
2864 stated, as if no ignored-patterns style were set. The completer
2865 actually generates its own list of matches; which completers are
2866 invoked is determined in the same way as for the _prefix com‐
2867 pleter. The single-ignored style is also available as described
2868 above.
2869 _list This completer allows the insertion of matches to be delayed
2871 until completion is attempted a second time without the word on
2872 the line being changed. On the first attempt, only the list of
2873 matches will be shown. It is affected by the styles condition
2874 and word, see the section `Completion System Configuration'
2875 above.
2876 _match This completer is intended to be used after the _complete com‐
2878 pleter. It behaves similarly but the string on the command line
2879 may be a pattern to match against trial completions. This gives
2880 the effect of the GLOB_COMPLETE option.
2881 Normally completion will be performed by taking the pattern from
2883 the line, inserting a `*' at the cursor position and comparing
2884 the resulting pattern with the possible completions generated.
2885 This can be modified with the match-original style described
2886 above.
2887 The generated matches will be offered in a menu completion
2889 unless the insert-unambiguous style is set to `true'; see the
2890 description above for other options for this style.
2891 Note that matcher specifications defined globally or used by the
2893 completion functions (the styles matcher-list and matcher) will
2894 not be used.
2895 _menu This completer was written as simple example function to show
2897 how menu completion can be enabled in shell code. However, it
2898 has the notable effect of disabling menu selection which can be
2899 useful with _generic based widgets. It should be used as the
2900 first completer in the list. Note that this is independent of
2901 the setting of the MENU_COMPLETE option and does not work with
2902 the other menu completion widgets such as reverse-menu-complete,
2903 or accept-and-menu-complete.
2904 _oldlist
2906 This completer controls how the standard completion widgets
2907 behave when there is an existing list of completions which may
2908 have been generated by a special completion (i.e. a sepa‐
2909 rately-bound completion command). It allows the ordinary com‐
2910 pletion keys to continue to use the list of completions thus
2911 generated, instead of producing a new list of ordinary contex‐
2912 tual completions. It should appear in the list of completers
2913 before any of the widgets which generate matches. It uses two
2914 styles: old-list and old-menu, see the section `Completion Sys‐
2915 tem Configuration' above.
2916 _precommand
2918 Complete an external command in word-separated arguments, as for
2919 exec and /usr/bin/env.
2920 _prefix
2922 This completer can be used to try completion with the suffix
2923 (everything after the cursor) ignored. In other words, the suf‐
2924 fix will not be considered to be part of the word to complete.
2925 The effect is similar to the expand-or-complete-prefix command.
2926 The completer style is used to decide which other completers are
2928 to be called to generate matches. If this style is unset, the
2929 list of completers set for the current context is used --
2930 except, of course, the _prefix completer itself. Furthermore,
2931 if this completer appears more than once in the list of com‐
2932 pleters only those completers not already tried by the last
2933 invocation of _prefix will be called.
2934 For example, consider this global completer style:
2936 zstyle ':completion:*' completer \
2938 _complete _prefix _correct _prefix:foo
2939 Here, the _prefix completer tries normal completion but ignoring
2941 the suffix. If that doesn't generate any matches, and neither
2942 does the call to the _correct completer after it, _prefix will
2943 be called a second time and, now only trying correction with the
2944 suffix ignored. On the second invocation the completer part of
2945 the context appears as `foo'.
2946 To use _prefix as the last resort and try only normal completion
2948 when it is invoked:
2949 zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete ... _prefix
2951 zstyle ':completion::prefix:*' completer _complete
2952 The add-space style is also respected. If it is set to `true'
2954 then _prefix will insert a space between the matches generated
2955 (if any) and the suffix.
2956 Note that this completer is only useful if the COMPLETE_IN_WORD
2958 option is set; otherwise, the cursor will be moved to the end of
2959 the current word before the completion code is called and hence
2960 there will be no suffix.
2961 _user_expand
2963 This completer behaves similarly to the _expand completer but
2964 instead performs expansions defined by users. The styles
2965 add-space and sort styles specific to the _expand completer are
2966 usable with _user_expand in addition to other styles handled
2967 more generally by the completion system. The tag all-expansions
2968 is also available.
2969 The expansion depends on the array style user-expand being
2971 defined for the current context; remember that the context for
2972 completers is less specific than that for contextual completion
2973 as the full context has not yet been determined. Elements of
2974 the array may have one of the following forms:
2975 $hash
2977 hash is the name of an associative array. Note this is
2979 not a full parameter expression, merely a $, suitably
2980 quoted to prevent immediate expansion, followed by the
2981 name of an associative array. If the trial expansion
2982 word matches a key in hash, the resulting expansion is
2983 the corresponding value.
2984 _func
2985 _func is the name of a shell function whose name must
2987 begin with _ but is not otherwise special to the comple‐
2988 tion system. The function is called with the trial word
2989 as an argument. If the word is to be expanded, the func‐
2990 tion should set the array reply to a list of expansions.
2991 Optionally, it can set REPLY to a word that will be used
2992 as a description for the set of expansions. The return
2993 status of the function is irrelevant.
2995 In addition to the context-dependent completions provided, which are
2996 expected to work in an intuitively obvious way, there are a few widgets
2997 implementing special behaviour which can be bound separately to keys.
2998 The following is a list of these and their default bindings.
2999 _bash_completions
3001 This function is used by two widgets, _bash_complete-word and
3002 _bash_list-choices. It exists to provide compatibility with
3003 completion bindings in bash. The last character of the binding
3004 determines what is completed: `!', command names; `$', environ‐
3005 ment variables; `@', host names; `/', file names; `~' user
3006 names. In bash, the binding preceded by `\e' gives completion,
3007 and preceded by `^X' lists options. As some of these bindings
3008 clash with standard zsh bindings, only `\e~' and `^X~' are bound
3009 by default. To add the rest, the following should be added to
3010 .zshrc after compinit has been run:
3011 for key in '!' '$' '@' '/' '~'; do
3013 bindkey "\e$key" _bash_complete-word
3014 bindkey "^X$key" _bash_list-choices
3015 done
3016 This includes the bindings for `~' in case they were already
3018 bound to something else; the completion code does not override
3019 user bindings.
3020 _correct_filename (^XC)
3022 Correct the filename path at the cursor position. Allows up to
3023 six errors in the name. Can also be called with an argument to
3024 correct a filename path, independently of zle; the correction is
3025 printed on standard output.
3026 _correct_word (^Xc)
3028 Performs correction of the current argument using the usual con‐
3029 textual completions as possible choices. This stores the string
3030 `correct-word' in the function field of the context name and
3031 then calls the _correct completer.
3032 _expand_alias (^Xa)
3034 This function can be used as a completer and as a bindable com‐
3035 mand. It expands the word the cursor is on if it is an alias.
3036 The types of alias expanded can be controlled with the styles
3037 regular, global and disabled.
3038 When used as a bindable command there is one additional feature
3040 that can be selected by setting the complete style to `true'.
3041 In this case, if the word is not the name of an alias,
3042 _expand_alias tries to complete the word to a full alias name
3043 without expanding it. It leaves the cursor directly after the
3044 completed word so that invoking _expand_alias once more will
3045 expand the now-complete alias name.
3046 _expand_word (^Xe)
3048 Performs expansion on the current word: equivalent to the stan‐
3049 dard expand-word command, but using the _expand completer.
3050 Before calling it, the function field of the context is set to
3051 `expand-word'.
3052 _generic
3054 This function is not defined as a widget and not bound by
3055 default. However, it can be used to define a widget and will
3056 then store the name of the widget in the function field of the
3057 context and call the completion system. This allows custom com‐
3058 pletion widgets with their own set of style settings to be
3059 defined easily. For example, to define a widget that performs
3060 normal completion and starts menu selection:
3061 zle -C foo complete-word _generic
3063 bindkey '...' foo
3064 zstyle ':completion:foo:*' menu yes select=1
3065 Note in particular that the completer style may be set for the
3067 context in order to change the set of functions used to generate
3068 possible matches. If _generic is called with arguments, those
3069 are passed through to _main_complete as the list of completers
3070 in place of those defined by the completer style.
3071 _history_complete_word (\e/)
3073 Complete words from the shell's command history. This uses the
3074 list, remove-all-dups, sort, and stop styles.
3075 _most_recent_file (^Xm)
3077 Complete the name of the most recently modified file matching
3078 the pattern on the command line (which may be blank). If given
3079 a numeric argument N, complete the Nth most recently modified
3080 file. Note the completion, if any, is always unique.
3081 _next_tags (^Xn)
3083 This command alters the set of matches used to that for the next
3084 tag, or set of tags, either as given by the tag-order style or
3085 as set by default; these matches would otherwise not be avail‐
3086 able. Successive invocations of the command cycle through all
3087 possible sets of tags.
3088 _read_comp (^X^R)
3090 Prompt the user for a string, and use that to perform completion
3091 on the current word. There are two possibilities for the
3092 string. First, it can be a set of words beginning `_', for
3093 example `_files -/', in which case the function with any argu‐
3094 ments will be called to generate the completions. Unambiguous
3095 parts of the function name will be completed automatically (nor‐
3096 mal completion is not available at this point) until a space is
3097 typed.
3098 Second, any other string will be passed as a set of arguments to
3100 compadd and should hence be an expression specifying what should
3101 be completed.
3102 A very restricted set of editing commands is available when
3104 reading the string: `DEL' and `^H' delete the last character;
3105 `^U' deletes the line, and `^C' and `^G' abort the function,
3106 while `RET' accepts the completion. Note the string is used
3107 verbatim as a command line, so arguments must be quoted in
3108 accordance with standard shell rules.
3109 Once a string has been read, the next call to _read_comp will
3111 use the existing string instead of reading a new one. To force
3112 a new string to be read, call _read_comp with a numeric argu‐
3113 ment.
3114 _complete_debug (^X?)
3116 This widget performs ordinary completion, but captures in a tem‐
3117 porary file a trace of the shell commands executed by the com‐
3118 pletion system. Each completion attempt gets its own file. A
3119 command to view each of these files is pushed onto the editor
3120 buffer stack.
3121 _complete_help (^Xh)
3123 This widget displays information about the context names, the
3124 tags, and the completion functions used when completing at the
3125 current cursor position. If given a numeric argument other than
3126 1 (as in `ESC-2 ^Xh'), then the styles used and the contexts for
3127 which they are used will be shown, too.
3128 Note that the information about styles may be incomplete; it
3130 depends on the information available from the completion func‐
3131 tions called, which in turn is determined by the user's own
3132 styles and other settings.
3133 _complete_help_generic
3135 Unlike other commands listed here, this must be created as a
3136 normal ZLE widget rather than a completion widget (i.e. with zle
3137 -N). It is used for generating help with a widget bound to the
3138 _generic widget that is described above.
3139 If this widget is created using the name of the function, as it
3141 is by default, then when executed it will read a key sequence.
3142 This is expected to be bound to a call to a completion function
3143 that uses the _generic widget. That widget will be executed,
3144 and information provided in the same format that the _com‐
3145 plete_help widget displays for contextual completion.
3146 If the widget's name contains debug, for example if it is cre‐
3148 ated as `zle -N _complete_debug_generic _complete_help_generic',
3149 it will read and execute the keystring for a generic widget as
3150 before, but then generate debugging information as done by _com‐
3151 plete_debug for contextual completion.
3152 If the widget's name contains noread, it will not read a
3154 keystring but instead arrange that the next use of a generic
3155 widget run in the same shell will have the effect as described
3156 above.
3157 The widget works by setting the shell parameter
3159 ZSH_TRACE_GENERIC_WIDGET which is read by _generic. Unsetting
3160 the parameter cancels any pending effect of the noread form.
3161 For example, after executing the following:
3163 zle -N _complete_debug_generic _complete_help_generic
3165 bindkey '^x:' _complete_debug_generic
3166 typing `C-x :' followed by the key sequence for a generic widget
3168 will cause trace output for that widget to be saved to a file.
3169 _complete_tag (^Xt)
3171 This widget completes symbol tags created by the etags or ctags
3172 programmes (note there is no connection with the completion sys‐
3173 tem's tags) stored in a file TAGS, in the format used by etags,
3174 or tags, in the format created by ctags. It will look back up
3175 the path hierarchy for the first occurrence of either file; if
3176 both exist, the file TAGS is preferred. You can specify the
3177 full path to a TAGS or tags file by setting the parameter $TAGS‐
3178 FILE or $tagsfile respectively. The corresponding completion
3179 tags used are etags and vtags, after emacs and vi respectively.
3180
3182 Descriptions follow for utility functions that may be useful when writ‐
3183 ing completion functions. If functions are installed in subdirecto‐
3184 ries, most of these reside in the Base subdirectory. Like the example
3185 functions for commands in the distribution, the utility functions gen‐
3186 erating matches all follow the convention of returning status zero if
3187 they generated completions and non-zero if no matching completions
3188 could be added.
3189 _absolute_command_paths
3191 This function completes external commands as absolute paths
3192 (unlike _command_names -e which completes their basenames). It
3193 takes no arguments.
3194 _all_labels [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ command arg ... ]
3196 This is a convenient interface to the _next_label function
3197 below, implementing the loop shown in the _next_label example.
3198 The command and its arguments are called to generate the
3199 matches. The options stored in the parameter name will automat‐
3200 ically be inserted into the args passed to the command. Nor‐
3201 mally, they are put directly after the command, but if one of
3202 the args is a single hyphen, they are inserted directly before
3203 that. If the hyphen is the last argument, it will be removed
3204 from the argument list before the command is called. This
3205 allows _all_labels to be used in almost all cases where the
3206 matches can be generated by a single call to the compadd builtin
3207 command or by a call to one of the utility functions.
3208 For example:
3210 local expl
3212 ...
3213 if _requested foo; then
3214 ...
3215 _all_labels foo expl '...' compadd ... - $matches
3216 fi
3217 Will complete the strings from the matches parameter, using com‐
3219 padd with additional options which will take precedence over
3220 those generated by _all_labels.
3221 _alternative [ -O name ] [ -C name ] spec ...
3223 This function is useful in simple cases where multiple tags are
3224 available. Essentially it implements a loop like the one
3225 described for the _tags function below.
3226 The tags to use and the action to perform if a tag is requested
3228 are described using the specs which are of the form:
3229 `tag:descr:action'. The tags are offered using _tags and if the
3230 tag is requested, the action is executed with the given descrip‐
3231 tion descr. The actions are those accepted by the _arguments
3232 function (described below), excluding the `->state' and `=...'
3233 forms.
3234 For example, the action may be a simple function call:
3236 _alternative \
3238 'users:user:_users' \
3239 'hosts:host:_hosts'
3240 offers usernames and hostnames as possible matches, generated by
3242 the _users and _hosts functions respectively.
3243 Like _arguments, this function uses _all_labels to execute the
3245 actions, which will loop over all sets of tags. Special han‐
3246 dling is only required if there is an additional valid tag, for
3247 example inside a function called from _alternative.
3248 The option `-O name' is used in the same way as by the _argu‐
3250 ments function. In other words, the elements of the name array
3251 will be passed to compadd when executing an action.
3252 Like _tags this function supports the -C option to give a dif‐
3254 ferent name for the argument context field.
3255 _arguments [ -nswWCRS ] [ -A pat ] [ -O name ] [ -M matchspec ]
3258 [ : ] spec ...
3259 _arguments [ opt ... ] -- [ -l ] [ -i pats ] [ -s pair ]
3260 [ helpspec ...]
3261 This function can be used to give a complete specification for
3262 completion for a command whose arguments follow standard UNIX
3263 option and argument conventions.
3264 Options Overview
3266 Options to _arguments itself must be in separate words, i.e. -s
3268 -w, not -sw. The options are followed by specs that describe
3269 options and arguments of the analyzed command. To avoid ambigu‐
3270 ity, all options to _arguments itself may be separated from the
3271 spec forms by a single colon.
3272 The `--' form is used to intuit spec forms from the help output
3274 of the command being analyzed, and is described in detail below.
3275 The opts for the `--' form are otherwise the same options as the
3276 first form. Note that `-s' following `--' has a distinct mean‐
3277 ing from `-s' preceding `--', and both may appear.
3278 The option switches -s, -S, -A, -w, and -W affect how _arguments
3280 parses the analyzed command line's options. These switches are
3281 useful for commands with standard argument parsing.
3282 The options of _arguments have the following meanings:
3284 -n With this option, _arguments sets the parameter NORMARG
3286 to the position of the first normal argument in the
3287 $words array, i.e. the position after the end of the
3288 options. If that argument has not been reached, NORMARG
3289 is set to -1. The caller should declare `integer NOR‐
3290 MARG' if the -n option is passed; otherwise the parameter
3291 is not used.
3292 -s Enable option stacking for single-letter options, whereby
3294 multiple single-letter options may be combined into a
3295 single word. For example, the two options `-x' and `-y'
3296 may be combined into a single word `-xy'. By default,
3297 every word corresponds to a single option name (`-xy' is
3298 a single option named `xy').
3299 Options beginning with a single hyphen or plus sign are
3301 eligible for stacking; words beginning with two hyphens
3302 are not.
3303 Note that -s after -- has a different meaning, which is
3305 documented in the segment entitled `Deriving spec forms
3306 from the help output'.
3307 -w In combination with -s, allow option stacking even if one
3309 or more of the options take arguments. For example, if
3310 -x takes an argument, with no -s, `-xy' is considered as
3311 a single (unhandled) option; with -s, -xy is an option
3312 with the argument `y'; with both -s and -w, -xy is the
3313 option -x and the option -y with arguments to -x (and to
3314 -y, if it takes arguments) still to come in subsequent
3315 words.
3316 -W This option takes -w a stage further: it is possible to
3318 complete single-letter options even after an argument
3319 that occurs in the same word. However, it depends on the
3320 action performed whether options will really be completed
3321 at this point. For more control, use a utility function
3322 like _guard as part of the action.
3323 -C Modify the curcontext parameter for an action of the form
3325 `->state'. This is discussed in detail below.
3326 -R Return status 300 instead of zero when a $state is to be
3328 handled, in the `->string' syntax.
3329 -S Do not complete options after a `--' appearing on the
3331 line, and ignore the `--'. For example, with -S, in the
3332 line
3333 foobar -x -- -y
3335 the `-x' is considered an option, the `-y' is considered
3337 an argument, and the `--' is considered to be neither.
3338 -A pat Do not complete options after the first non-option argu‐
3340 ment on the line. pat is a pattern matching all strings
3341 which are not to be taken as arguments. For example, to
3342 make _arguments stop completing options after the first
3343 normal argument, but ignoring all strings starting with a
3344 hyphen even if they are not described by one of the opt‐
3345 specs, the form is `-A "-*"'.
3346 -O name
3348 Pass the elements of the array name as arguments to func‐
3349 tions called to execute actions. This is discussed in
3350 detail below.
3351 -M matchspec
3353 Use the match specification matchspec for completing
3354 option names and values. The default matchspec allows
3355 partial word completion after `_' and `-', such as com‐
3356 pleting `-f-b' to `-foo-bar'. The default matchspec is:
3357 r:|[_-]=* r:|=*
3358 specs: overview
3360 Each of the following forms is a spec describing individual sets
3362 of options or arguments on the command line being analyzed.
3363 n:message:action
3365 n::message:action
3366 This describes the n'th normal argument. The message
3367 will be printed above the matches generated and the
3368 action indicates what can be completed in this position
3369 (see below). If there are two colons before the message
3370 the argument is optional. If the message contains only
3371 white space, nothing will be printed above the matches
3372 unless the action adds an explanation string itself.
3373 :message:action
3375 ::message:action
3376 Similar, but describes the next argument, whatever number
3377 that happens to be. If all arguments are specified in
3378 this form in the correct order the numbers are unneces‐
3379 sary.
3380 *:message:action
3382 *::message:action
3383 *:::message:action
3384 This describes how arguments (usually non-option argu‐
3385 ments, those not beginning with - or +) are to be com‐
3386 pleted when neither of the first two forms was provided.
3387 Any number of arguments can be completed in this fashion.
3388 With two colons before the message, the words special
3390 array and the CURRENT special parameter are modified to
3391 refer only to the normal arguments when the action is
3392 executed or evaluated. With three colons before the mes‐
3393 sage they are modified to refer only to the normal argu‐
3394 ments covered by this description.
3395 optspec
3397 optspec:...
3398 This describes an option. The colon indicates handling
3399 for one or more arguments to the option; if it is not
3400 present, the option is assumed to take no arguments.
3401 The following forms are available for the initial opt‐
3403 spec, whether or not the option has arguments.
3404 *optspec
3406 Here optspec is one of the remaining forms below.
3407 This indicates the following optspec may be
3408 repeated. Otherwise if the corresponding option
3409 is already present on the command line to the left
3410 of the cursor it will not be offered again.
3411 -optname
3413 +optname
3414 In the simplest form the optspec is just the
3415 option name beginning with a minus or a plus sign,
3416 such as `-foo'. The first argument for the option
3417 (if any) must follow as a separate word directly
3418 after the option.
3419 Either of `-+optname' and `+-optname' can be used
3421 to specify that -optname and +optname are both
3422 valid.
3423 In all the remaining forms, the leading `-' may be
3425 replaced by or paired with `+' in this way.
3426 -optname-
3428 The first argument of the option must come
3429 directly after the option name in the same word.
3430 For example, `-foo-:...' specifies that the com‐
3431 pleted option and argument will look like
3432 `-fooarg'.
3433 -optname+
3435 The first argument may appear immediately after
3436 optname in the same word, or may appear as a sepa‐
3437 rate word after the option. For example,
3438 `-foo+:...' specifies that the completed option
3439 and argument will look like either `-fooarg' or
3440 `-foo arg'.
3441 -optname=
3443 The argument may appear as the next word, or in
3444 same word as the option name provided that it is
3445 separated from it by an equals sign, for example
3446 `-foo=arg' or `-foo arg'.
3447 -optname=-
3449 The argument to the option must appear after an
3450 equals sign in the same word, and may not be given
3451 in the next argument.
3452 optspec[explanation]
3454 An explanation string may be appended to any of
3455 the preceding forms of optspec by enclosing it in
3456 brackets, as in `-q[query operation]'.
3457 The verbose style is used to decide whether the
3459 explanation strings are displayed with the option
3460 in a completion listing.
3461 If no bracketed explanation string is given but
3463 the auto-description style is set and only one
3464 argument is described for this optspec, the value
3465 of the style is displayed, with any appearance of
3466 the sequence `%d' in it replaced by the message of
3467 the first optarg that follows the optspec; see
3468 below.
3469 It is possible for options with a literal `+' or `=' to
3471 appear, but that character must be quoted, for example
3472 `-\+'.
3473 Each optarg following an optspec must take one of the
3475 following forms:
3476 :message:action
3478 ::message:action
3479 An argument to the option; message and action are
3480 treated as for ordinary arguments. In the first
3481 form, the argument is mandatory, and in the second
3482 form it is optional.
3483 This group may be repeated for options which take
3485 multiple arguments. In other words, :mes‐
3486 sage1:action1:message2:action2 specifies that the
3487 option takes two arguments.
3488 :*pattern:message:action
3490 :*pattern::message:action
3491 :*pattern:::message:action
3492 This describes multiple arguments. Only the last
3493 optarg for an option taking multiple arguments may
3494 be given in this form. If the pattern is empty
3495 (i.e. :*:), all the remaining words on the line
3496 are to be completed as described by the action;
3497 otherwise, all the words up to and including a
3498 word matching the pattern are to be completed
3499 using the action.
3500 Multiple colons are treated as for the `*:...'
3502 forms for ordinary arguments: when the message is
3503 preceded by two colons, the words special array
3504 and the CURRENT special parameter are modified
3505 during the execution or evaluation of the action
3506 to refer only to the words after the option. When
3507 preceded by three colons, they are modified to
3508 refer only to the words covered by this descrip‐
3509 tion.
3510 Any literal colon in an optname, message, or action must be pre‐
3512 ceded by a backslash, `\:'.
3513 Each of the forms above may be preceded by a list in parentheses
3515 of option names and argument numbers. If the given option is on
3516 the command line, the options and arguments indicated in paren‐
3517 theses will not be offered. For example, `(-two -three
3518 1)-one:...' completes the option `-one'; if this appears on the
3519 command line, the options -two and -three and the first ordinary
3520 argument will not be completed after it. `(-foo):...' specifies
3521 an ordinary argument completion; -foo will not be completed if
3522 that argument is already present.
3523 Other items may appear in the list of excluded options to indi‐
3525 cate various other items that should not be applied when the
3526 current specification is matched: a single star (*) for the rest
3527 arguments (i.e. a specification of the form `*:...'); a colon
3528 (:) for all normal (non-option-) arguments; and a hyphen (-) for
3529 all options. For example, if `(*)' appears before an option and
3530 the option appears on the command line, the list of remaining
3531 arguments (those shown in the above table beginning with `*:')
3532 will not be completed.
3533 To aid in reuse of specifications, it is possible to precede any
3535 of the forms above with `!'; then the form will no longer be
3536 completed, although if the option or argument appears on the
3537 command line they will be skipped as normal. The main use for
3538 this is when the arguments are given by an array, and _arguments
3539 is called repeatedly for more specific contexts: on the first
3540 call `_arguments $global_options' is used, and on subsequent
3541 calls `_arguments !$^global_options'.
3542 specs: actions
3544 In each of the forms above the action determines how completions
3546 should be generated. Except for the `->string' form below, the
3547 action will be executed by calling the _all_labels function to
3548 process all tag labels. No special handling of tags is needed
3549 unless a function call introduces a new one.
3550 The functions called to execute actions will be called with the
3552 elements of the array named by the `-O name' option as argu‐
3553 ments. This can be used, for example, to pass the same set of
3554 options for the compadd builtin to all actions.
3555 The forms for action are as follows.
3557 (single unquoted space)
3559 This is useful where an argument is required but it is
3560 not possible or desirable to generate matches for it.
3561 The message will be displayed but no completions listed.
3562 Note that even in this case the colon at the end of the
3563 message is needed; it may only be omitted when neither a
3564 message nor an action is given.
3565 (item1 item2 ...)
3567 One of a list of possible matches, for example:
3568 :foo:(foo bar baz)
3570 ((item1\:desc1 ...))
3572 Similar to the above, but with descriptions for each pos‐
3573 sible match. Note the backslash before the colon. For
3574 example,
3575 :foo:((a\:bar b\:baz))
3577 The matches will be listed together with their descrip‐
3579 tions if the description style is set with the values tag
3580 in the context.
3581 ->string
3583 In this form, _arguments processes the arguments and
3584 options and then returns control to the calling function
3585 with parameters set to indicate the state of processing;
3586 the calling function then makes its own arrangements for
3587 generating completions. For example, functions that
3588 implement a state machine can use this type of action.
3589 Where _arguments encounters action in the `->string' for‐
3591 mat, it will strip all leading and trailing whitespace
3592 from string and set the array state to the set of all
3593 strings for which an action is to be performed. The ele‐
3594 ments of the array state_descr are assigned the corre‐
3595 sponding message field from each optarg containing such
3596 an action.
3597 By default and in common with all other well behaved com‐
3599 pletion functions, _arguments returns status zero if it
3600 was able to add matches and non-zero otherwise. However,
3601 if the -R option is given, _arguments will instead return
3602 a status of 300 to indicate that $state is to be handled.
3603 In addition to $state and $state_descr, _arguments also
3605 sets the global parameters `context', `line' and
3606 `opt_args' as described below, and does not reset any
3607 changes made to the special parameters such as PREFIX and
3608 words. This gives the calling function the choice of
3609 resetting these parameters or propagating changes in
3610 them.
3611 A function calling _arguments with at least one action
3613 containing a `->string' must therefore declare appropri‐
3614 ate local parameters:
3615 local context state state_descr line
3617 typeset -A opt_args
3618 to prevent _arguments from altering the global environ‐
3620 ment.
3621 {eval-string}
3623 A string in braces is evaluated as shell code to generate
3624 matches. If the eval-string itself does not begin with
3625 an opening parenthesis or brace it is split into separate
3626 words before execution.
3627 = action
3629 If the action starts with `= ' (an equals sign followed
3630 by a space), _arguments will insert the contents of the
3631 argument field of the current context as the new first
3632 element in the words special array and increment the
3633 value of the CURRENT special parameter. This has the
3634 effect of inserting a dummy word onto the completion com‐
3635 mand line while not changing the point at which comple‐
3636 tion is taking place.
3637 This is most useful with one of the specifiers that
3639 restrict the words on the command line on which the
3640 action is to operate (the two- and three-colon forms
3641 above). One particular use is when an action itself
3642 causes _arguments on a restricted range; it is necessary
3643 to use this trick to insert an appropriate command name
3644 into the range for the second call to _arguments to be
3645 able to parse the line.
3646 word...
3648 word...
3649 This covers all forms other than those above. If the
3650 action starts with a space, the remaining list of words
3651 will be invoked unchanged.
3652 Otherwise it will be invoked with some extra strings
3654 placed after the first word; these are to be passed down
3655 as options to the compadd builtin. They ensure that the
3656 state specified by _arguments, in particular the descrip‐
3657 tions of options and arguments, is correctly passed to
3658 the completion command. These additional arguments are
3659 taken from the array parameter `expl'; this will be set
3660 up before executing the action and hence may be referred
3661 to inside it, typically in an expansion of the form
3662 `$expl[@]' which preserves empty elements of the array.
3663 During the performance of the action the array `line' will be
3665 set to the normal arguments from the command line, i.e. the
3666 words from the command line after the command name excluding all
3667 options and their arguments. Options are stored in the associa‐
3668 tive array `opt_args' with option names as keys and their argu‐
3669 ments as the values. For options that have more than one argu‐
3670 ment these are given as one string, separated by colons. All
3671 colons and backslashes in the original arguments are preceded
3672 with backslashes.
3673 The parameter `context' is set when returning to the calling
3675 function to perform an action of the form `->string'. It is set
3676 to an array of elements corresponding to the elements of $state.
3677 Each element is a suitable name for the argument field of the
3678 context: either a string of the form `option-opt-n' for the n'th
3679 argument of the option -opt, or a string of the form `argu‐
3680 ment-n' for the n'th argument. For `rest' arguments, that is
3681 those in the list at the end not handled by position, n is the
3682 string `rest'. For example, when completing the argument of the
3683 -o option, the name is `option-o-1', while for the second normal
3684 (non-option-) argument it is `argument-2'.
3685 Furthermore, during the evaluation of the action the context
3687 name in the curcontext parameter is altered to append the same
3688 string that is stored in the context parameter.
3689 The option -C tells _arguments to modify the curcontext parame‐
3691 ter for an action of the form `->state'. This is the standard
3692 parameter used to keep track of the current context. Here it
3693 (and not the context array) should be made local to the calling
3694 function to avoid passing back the modified value and should be
3695 initialised to the current value at the start of the function:
3696 local curcontext="$curcontext"
3698 This is useful where it is not possible for multiple states to
3700 be valid together.
3701 Grouping Options
3703 Options can be grouped to simplify exclusion lists. A group is
3705 introduced with `+' followed by a name for the group in the sub‐
3706 sequent word. Whole groups can then be referenced in an exclu‐
3707 sion list or a group name can be used to disambiguate between
3708 two forms of the same option. For example:
3709 _arguments \
3711 '(group2--x)-a' \
3712 + group1 \
3713 -m \
3714 '(group2)-n' \
3715 + group2 \
3716 -x -y
3717 If the name of a group is specified in the form `(name)' then
3719 only one value from that group will ever be completed; more for‐
3720 mally, all specifications are mutually exclusive to all other
3721 specifications in that group. This is useful for defining
3722 options that are aliases for each other. For example:
3723 _arguments \
3725 -a -b \
3726 + '(operation)' \
3727 {-c,--compress}'[compress]' \
3728 {-d,--decompress}'[decompress]' \
3729 {-l,--list}'[list]'
3730 If an option in a group appears on the command line, it is
3732 stored in the associative array `opt_args' with 'group-option'
3733 as a key. In the example above, a key `operation--c' is used if
3734 the option `-c' is present on the command line.
3735 Specifying Multiple Sets of Arguments
3737 It is possible to specify multiple sets of options and arguments
3739 with the sets separated by single hyphens. This differs from
3740 groups in that sets are considered to be mutually exclusive of
3741 each other.
3742 Specifications before the first set and from any group are com‐
3744 mon to all sets. For example:
3745 _arguments \
3747 -a \
3748 - set1 \
3749 -c \
3750 - set2 \
3751 -d \
3752 ':arg:(x2 y2)'
3753 This defines two sets. When the command line contains the
3755 option `-c', the `-d' option and the argument will not be con‐
3756 sidered possible completions. When it contains `-d' or an argu‐
3757 ment, the option `-c' will not be considered. However, after
3758 `-a' both sets will still be considered valid.
3759 As for groups, the name of a set may appear in exclusion lists,
3761 either alone or preceding a normal option or argument specifica‐
3762 tion.
3763 The completion code has to parse the command line separately for
3765 each set. This can be slow so sets should only be used when nec‐
3766 essary. A useful alternative is often an option specification
3767 with rest-arguments (as in `-foo:*:...'); here the option -foo
3768 swallows up all remaining arguments as described by the optarg
3769 definitions.
3770 Deriving spec forms from the help output
3772 The option `--' allows _arguments to work out the names of long
3774 options that support the `--help' option which is standard in
3775 many GNU commands. The command word is called with the argument
3776 `--help' and the output examined for option names. Clearly, it
3777 can be dangerous to pass this to commands which may not support
3778 this option as the behaviour of the command is unspecified.
3779 In addition to options, `_arguments --' will try to deduce the
3781 types of arguments available for options when the form
3782 `--opt=val' is valid. It is also possible to provide hints by
3783 examining the help text of the command and adding helpspec of
3784 the form `pattern:message:action'; note that other _arguments
3785 spec forms are not used. The pattern is matched against the
3786 help text for an option, and if it matches the message and
3787 action are used as for other argument specifiers. The special
3788 case of `*:' means both message and action are empty, which has
3789 the effect of causing options having no description in the help
3790 output to be ordered in listings ahead of options that have a
3791 description.
3792 For example:
3794 _arguments -- '*\*:toggle:(yes no)' \
3796 '*=FILE*:file:_files' \
3797 '*=DIR*:directory:_files -/' \
3798 '*=PATH*:directory:_files -/'
3799 Here, `yes' and `no' will be completed as the argument of
3801 options whose description ends in a star; file names will be
3802 completed for options that contain the substring `=FILE' in the
3803 description; and directories will be completed for options whose
3804 description contains `=DIR' or `=PATH'. The last three are in
3805 fact the default and so need not be given explicitly, although
3806 it is possible to override the use of these patterns. A typical
3807 help text which uses this feature is:
3808 -C, --directory=DIR change to directory DIR
3810 so that the above specifications will cause directories to be
3812 completed after `--directory', though not after `-C'.
3813 Note also that _arguments tries to find out automatically if the
3815 argument for an option is optional. This can be specified
3816 explicitly by doubling the colon before the message.
3817 If the pattern ends in `(-)', this will be removed from the pat‐
3819 tern and the action will be used only directly after the `=',
3820 not in the next word. This is the behaviour of a normal speci‐
3821 fication defined with the form `=-'.
3822 By default, the command (with the option `--help') is run after
3824 resetting all the locale categories (except for LC_CTYPE) to
3825 `C'. If the localized help output is known to work, the option
3826 `-l' can be specified after the `_arguments --' so that the com‐
3827 mand is run in the current locale.
3828 The `_arguments --' can be followed by the option `-i patterns'
3830 to give patterns for options which are not to be completed. The
3831 patterns can be given as the name of an array parameter or as a
3832 literal list in parentheses. For example,
3833 _arguments -- -i \
3835 "(--(en|dis)able-FEATURE*)"
3836 will cause completion to ignore the options `--enable-FEATURE'
3838 and `--disable-FEATURE' (this example is useful with GNU config‐
3839 ure).
3840 The `_arguments --' form can also be followed by the option `-s
3842 pair' to describe option aliases. The pair consists of a list
3843 of alternating patterns and corresponding replacements, enclosed
3844 in parens and quoted so that it forms a single argument word in
3845 the _arguments call.
3846 For example, some configure-script help output describes options
3848 only as `--enable-foo', but the script also accepts the negated
3849 form `--disable-foo'. To allow completion of the second form:
3850 _arguments -- -s "((#s)--enable- --disable-)"
3852 Miscellaneous notes
3854 Finally, note that _arguments generally expects to be the pri‐
3856 mary function handling any completion for which it is used. It
3857 may have side effects which change the treatment of any matches
3858 added by other functions called after it. To combine _arguments
3859 with other functions, those functions should be called either
3860 before _arguments, as an action within a spec, or in handlers
3861 for `->state' actions.
3862 Here is a more general example of the use of _arguments:
3864 _arguments '-l+:left border:' \
3866 '-format:paper size:(letter A4)' \
3867 '*-copy:output file:_files::resolution:(300 600)' \
3868 ':postscript file:_files -g \*.\(ps\|eps\)' \
3869 '*:page number:'
3870 This describes three options: `-l', `-format', and `-copy'. The
3872 first takes one argument described as `left border' for which no
3873 completion will be offered because of the empty action. Its
3874 argument may come directly after the `-l' or it may be given as
3875 the next word on the line.
3876 The `-format' option takes one argument in the next word,
3878 described as `paper size' for which only the strings `letter'
3879 and `A4' will be completed.
3880 The `-copy' option may appear more than once on the command line
3882 and takes two arguments. The first is mandatory and will be
3883 completed as a filename. The second is optional (because of the
3884 second colon before the description `resolution') and will be
3885 completed from the strings `300' and `600'.
3886 The last two descriptions say what should be completed as argu‐
3888 ments. The first describes the first argument as a `postscript
3889 file' and makes files ending in `ps' or `eps' be completed. The
3890 last description gives all other arguments the description `page
3891 numbers' but does not offer completions.
3892 _cache_invalid cache_identifier
3894 This function returns status zero if the completions cache cor‐
3895 responding to the given cache identifier needs rebuilding. It
3896 determines this by looking up the cache-policy style for the
3897 current context. This should provide a function name which is
3898 run with the full path to the relevant cache file as the only
3899 argument.
3900 Example:
3902 _example_caching_policy () {
3904 # rebuild if cache is more than a week old
3905 local -a oldp
3906 oldp=( "$1"(Nm+7) )
3907 (( $#oldp ))
3908 }
3909 _call_function return name [ arg ... ]
3911 If a function name exists, it is called with the arguments args.
3912 The return argument gives the name of a parameter in which the
3913 return status from the function name should be stored; if return
3914 is empty or a single hyphen it is ignored.
3915 The return status of _call_function itself is zero if the func‐
3917 tion name exists and was called and non-zero otherwise.
3918 _call_program [ -l ] [ -p ] tag string ...
3920 This function provides a mechanism for the user to override the
3921 use of an external command. It looks up the command style with
3922 the supplied tag. If the style is set, its value is used as the
3923 command to execute. The strings from the call to _call_program,
3924 or from the style if set, are concatenated with spaces between
3925 them and the resulting string is evaluated. The return status
3926 is the return status of the command called.
3927 By default, the command is run in an environment where all the
3929 locale categories (except for LC_CTYPE) are reset to `C' by
3930 calling the utility function _comp_locale (see below). If the
3931 option `-l' is given, the command is run with the current
3932 locale.
3933 If the option `-p' is supplied it indicates that the command
3935 output is influenced by the permissions it is run with. If the
3936 gain-privileges style is set to true, _call_program will make
3937 use of commands such as sudo, if present on the command-line, to
3938 match the permissions to whatever the final command is likely to
3939 run under. When looking up the gain-privileges and command
3940 styles, the command component of the zstyle context will end
3941 with a slash (`/') followed by the command that would be used to
3942 gain privileges.
3943 _combination [ -s pattern ] tag style spec ... field opts ...
3945 This function is used to complete combinations of values, for
3946 example pairs of hostnames and usernames. The style argument
3947 gives the style which defines the pairs; it is looked up in a
3948 context with the tag specified.
3949 The style name consists of field names separated by hyphens, for
3951 example `users-hosts-ports'. For each field for a value is
3952 already known, a spec of the form `field=pattern' is given. For
3953 example, if the command line so far specifies a user `pws', the
3954 argument `users=pws' should appear.
3955 The next argument with no equals sign is taken as the name of
3957 the field for which completions should be generated (presumably
3958 not one of the fields for which the value is known).
3959 The matches generated will be taken from the value of the style.
3961 These should contain the possible values for the combinations in
3962 the appropriate order (users, hosts, ports in the example
3963 above). The values for the different fields are separated by
3964 colons. This can be altered with the option -s to _combination
3965 which specifies a pattern. Typically this is a character class,
3966 as for example `-s "[:@]"' in the case of the users-hosts style.
3967 Each `field=pattern' specification restricts the completions
3968 which apply to elements of the style with appropriately matching
3969 fields.
3970 If no style with the given name is defined for the given tag, or
3972 if none of the strings in style's value match, but a function
3973 name of the required field preceded by an underscore is defined,
3974 that function will be called to generate the matches. For exam‐
3975 ple, if there is no `users-hosts-ports' or no matching hostname
3976 when a host is required, the function `_hosts' will automati‐
3977 cally be called.
3978 If the same name is used for more than one field, in both the
3980 `field=pattern' and the argument that gives the name of the
3981 field to be completed, the number of the field (starting with
3982 one) may be given after the fieldname, separated from it by a
3983 colon.
3984 All arguments after the required field name are passed to com‐
3986 padd when generating matches from the style value, or to the
3987 functions for the fields if they are called.
3988 _command_names [ -e | - ]
3990 This function completes words that are valid at command posi‐
3991 tion: names of aliases, builtins, hashed commands, functions,
3992 and so on. With the -e flag, only hashed commands are com‐
3993 pleted. The - flag is ignored.
3994 _comp_locale
3996 This function resets all the locale categories other than
3997 LC_CTYPE to `C' so that the output from external commands can be
3998 easily analyzed by the completion system. LC_CTYPE retains the
3999 current value (taking LC_ALL and LANG into account), ensuring
4000 that non-ASCII characters in file names are still handled prop‐
4001 erly.
4002 This function should normally be run only in a subshell, because
4004 the new locale is exported to the environment. Typical usage
4005 would be `$(_comp_locale; command ...)'.
4006 _completers [ -p ]
4008 This function completes names of completers.
4009 -p Include the leading underscore (`_') in the matches.
4011 _describe [-12JVx] [ -oO | -t tag ] descr name1 [ name2 ] [ opt ... ]
4014 [ -- name1 [ name2 ] [ opt ... ] ... ]
4015 This function associates completions with descriptions. Multi‐
4016 ple groups separated by -- can be supplied, potentially with
4017 different completion options opts.
4018 The descr is taken as a string to display above the matches if
4020 the format style for the descriptions tag is set. This is fol‐
4021 lowed by one or two names of arrays followed by options to pass
4022 to compadd. The array name1 contains the possible completions
4023 with their descriptions in the form `completion:description'.
4024 Any literal colons in completion must be quoted with a back‐
4025 slash. If a name2 is given, it should have the same number of
4026 elements as name1; in this case the corresponding elements are
4027 added as possible completions instead of the completion strings
4028 from name1. The completion list will retain the descriptions
4029 from name1. Finally, a set of completion options can appear.
4030 If the option `-o' appears before the first argument, the
4032 matches added will be treated as names of command options (N.B.
4033 not shell options), typically following a `-', `--' or `+' on
4034 the command line. In this case _describe uses the prefix-hid‐
4035 den, prefix-needed and verbose styles to find out if the strings
4036 should be added as completions and if the descriptions should be
4037 shown. Without the `-o' option, only the verbose style is used
4038 to decide how descriptions are shown. If `-O' is used instead
4039 of `-o', command options are completed as above but _describe
4040 will not handle the prefix-needed style.
4041 With the -t option a tag can be specified. The default is `val‐
4043 ues' or, if the -o option is given, `options'.
4044 The options -1, -2, -J, -V, -x are passed to _next_label.
4046 If selected by the list-grouped style, strings with the same
4048 description will appear together in the list.
4049 _describe uses the _all_labels function to generate the matches,
4051 so it does not need to appear inside a loop over tag labels.
4052 _description [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ spec ... ]
4054 This function is not to be confused with the previous one; it is
4055 used as a helper function for creating options to compadd. It
4056 is buried inside many of the higher level completion functions
4057 and so often does not need to be called directly.
4058 The styles listed below are tested in the current context using
4060 the given tag. The resulting options for compadd are put into
4061 the array named name (this is traditionally `expl', but this
4062 convention is not enforced). The description for the corre‐
4063 sponding set of matches is passed to the function in descr.
4064 The styles tested are: format, hidden, matcher, ignore-line,
4066 ignored-patterns, group-name and sort. The format style is
4067 first tested for the given tag and then for the descriptions tag
4068 if no value was found, while the remainder are only tested for
4069 the tag given as the first argument. The function also calls
4070 _setup which tests some more styles.
4071 The string returned by the format style (if any) will be modi‐
4073 fied so that the sequence `%d' is replaced by the descr given as
4074 the third argument without any leading or trailing white space.
4075 If, after removing the white space, the descr is the empty
4076 string, the format style will not be used and the options put
4077 into the name array will not contain an explanation string to be
4078 displayed above the matches.
4079 If _description is called with more than three arguments, the
4081 additional specs should be of the form `char:str'. These supply
4082 escape sequence replacements for the format style: every appear‐
4083 ance of `%char' will be replaced by string.
4084 If the -x option is given, the description will be passed to
4086 compadd using the -x option instead of the default -X. This
4087 means that the description will be displayed even if there are
4088 no corresponding matches.
4089 The options placed in the array name take account of the
4091 group-name style, so matches are placed in a separate group
4092 where necessary. The group normally has its elements sorted (by
4093 passing the option -J to compadd), but if an option starting
4094 with `-V', `-J', `-1', or `-2' is passed to _description, that
4095 option will be included in the array. Hence it is possible for
4096 the completion group to be unsorted by giving the option `-V',
4097 `-1V', or `-2V'.
4098 In most cases, the function will be used like this:
4100 local expl
4102 _description files expl file
4103 compadd "$expl[@]" - "$files[@]"
4104 Note the use of the parameter expl, the hyphen, and the list of
4106 matches. Almost all calls to compadd within the completion sys‐
4107 tem use a similar format; this ensures that user-specified
4108 styles are correctly passed down to the builtins which implement
4109 the internals of completion.
4110 _dir_list [ -s sep ] [ -S ]
4112 Complete a list of directory names separated by colons (the same
4113 format as $PATH).
4114 -s sep Use sep as separator between items. sep defaults to a
4116 colon (`:').
4117 -S Add sep instead of slash (`/') as an autoremoveable suf‐
4119 fix.
4120 _dispatch context string ...
4122 This sets the current context to context and looks for comple‐
4123 tion functions to handle this context by hunting through the
4124 list of command names or special contexts (as described above
4125 for compdef) given as strings. The first completion function to
4126 be defined for one of the contexts in the list is used to gener‐
4127 ate matches. Typically, the last string is -default- to cause
4128 the function for default completion to be used as a fallback.
4129 The function sets the parameter $service to the string being
4131 tried, and sets the context/command field (the fourth) of the
4132 $curcontext parameter to the context given as the first argu‐
4133 ment.
4134 _email_addresses [ -c ] [ -n plugin ]
4136 Complete email addresses. Addresses are provided by plugins.
4137 -c Complete bare localhost@domain.tld addresses, without a
4139 name part or a comment. Without this option, RFC822
4140 `Firstname Lastname <address>' strings are completed.
4141 -n plugin
4143 Complete aliases from plugin.
4144 The following plugins are available by default: _email-ldap (see
4146 the filter style), _email-local (completes user@hostname Unix
4147 addresses), _email-mail (completes aliases from ~/.mailrc),
4148 _email-mush, _email-mutt, and _email-pine.
4149 Addresses from the _email-foo plugin are added under the tag
4151 `email-foo'.
4152 Writing plugins
4154 Plugins are written as separate functions with names starting
4156 with `_email-'. They are invoked with the -c option and compadd
4157 options. They should either do their own completion or set the
4158 $reply array to a list of `alias:address' elements and return
4159 300. New plugins will be picked up and run automatically.
4160 _files The function _files is a wrapper around _path_files. It supports
4162 all of the same functionality, with some enhancements --
4163 notably, it respects the list-dirs-first style, and it allows
4164 users to override the behaviour of the -g and -/ options with
4165 the file-patterns style. _files should therefore be preferred
4166 over _path_files in most cases.
4167 This function accepts the full set of options allowed by
4169 _path_files, described below.
4170 _gnu_generic
4172 This function is a simple wrapper around the _arguments function
4173 described above. It can be used to determine automatically the
4174 long options understood by commands that produce a list when
4175 passed the option `--help'. It is intended to be used as a
4176 top-level completion function in its own right. For example, to
4177 enable option completion for the commands foo and bar, use
4178 compdef _gnu_generic foo bar
4180 after the call to compinit.
4182 The completion system as supplied is conservative in its use of
4184 this function, since it is important to be sure the command
4185 understands the option `--help'.
4186 _guard [ options ] pattern descr
4188 This function displays descr if pattern matches the string to be
4189 completed. It is intended to be used in the action for the
4190 specifications passed to _arguments and similar functions.
4191 The return status is zero if the message was displayed and the
4193 word to complete is not empty, and non-zero otherwise.
4194 The pattern may be preceded by any of the options understood by
4196 compadd that are passed down from _description, namely -M, -J,
4197 -V, -1, -2, -n, -F and -X. All of these options will be
4198 ignored. This fits in conveniently with the argument-passing
4199 conventions of actions for _arguments.
4200 As an example, consider a command taking the options -n and
4202 -none, where -n must be followed by a numeric value in the same
4203 word. By using:
4204 _arguments '-n-: :_guard "[0-9]#" "numeric value"' '-none'
4206 _arguments can be made to both display the message `numeric
4208 value' and complete options after `-n<TAB>'. If the `-n' is
4209 already followed by one or more digits (the pattern passed to
4210 _guard) only the message will be displayed; if the `-n' is fol‐
4211 lowed by another character, only options are completed.
4212 _message [ -r12 ] [ -VJ group ] descr
4214 _message -e [ tag ] descr
4215 The descr is used in the same way as the third argument to the
4216 _description function, except that the resulting string will
4217 always be shown whether or not matches were generated. This is
4218 useful for displaying a help message in places where no comple‐
4219 tions can be generated.
4220 The format style is examined with the messages tag to find a
4222 message; the usual tag, descriptions, is used only if the style
4223 is not set with the former.
4224 If the -r option is given, no style is used; the descr is taken
4226 literally as the string to display. This is most useful when
4227 the descr comes from a pre-processed argument list which already
4228 contains an expanded description. Note that this option does
4229 not disable the `%'-sequence parsing done by compadd.
4230 The -12VJ options and the group are passed to compadd and hence
4232 determine the group the message string is added to.
4233 The second -e form gives a description for completions with the
4235 tag tag to be shown even if there are no matches for that tag.
4236 This form is called by _arguments in the event that there is no
4237 action for an option specification. The tag can be omitted and
4238 if so the tag is taken from the parameter $curtag; this is main‐
4239 tained by the completion system and so is usually correct. Note
4240 that if there are no matches at the time this function is
4241 called, compstate[insert] is cleared, so additional matches gen‐
4242 erated later are not inserted on the command line.
4243 _multi_parts [ -i ] sep array
4245 The argument sep is a separator character. The array may be
4246 either the name of an array parameter or a literal array in the
4247 form `(foo bar)', a parenthesised list of words separated by
4248 whitespace. The possible completions are the strings from the
4249 array. However, each chunk delimited by sep will be completed
4250 separately. For example, the _tar function uses `_multi_parts /
4251 patharray' to complete partial file paths from the given array
4252 of complete file paths.
4253 The -i option causes _multi_parts to insert a unique match even
4255 if that requires multiple separators to be inserted. This is
4256 not usually the expected behaviour with filenames, but certain
4257 other types of completion, for example those with a fixed set of
4258 possibilities, may be more suited to this form.
4259 Like other utility functions, this function accepts the `-V',
4261 `-J', `-1', `-2', `-n', `-f', `-X', `-M', `-P', `-S', `-r',
4262 `-R', and `-q' options and passes them to the compadd builtin.
4263 _next_label [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ option ... ]
4265 This function is used to implement the loop over different tag
4266 labels for a particular tag as described above for the tag-order
4267 style. On each call it checks to see if there are any more tag
4268 labels; if there is it returns status zero, otherwise non-zero.
4269 As this function requires a current tag to be set, it must
4270 always follow a call to _tags or _requested.
4271 The -x12VJ options and the first three arguments are passed to
4273 the _description function. Where appropriate the tag will be
4274 replaced by a tag label in this call. Any description given in
4275 the tag-order style is preferred to the descr passed to
4276 _next_label.
4277 The options given after the descr are set in the parameter given
4279 by name, and hence are to be passed to compadd or whatever func‐
4280 tion is called to add the matches.
4281 Here is a typical use of this function for the tag foo. The
4283 call to _requested determines if tag foo is required at all; the
4284 loop over _next_label handles any labels defined for the tag in
4285 the tag-order style.
4286 local expl ret=1
4288 ...
4289 if _requested foo; then
4290 ...
4291 while _next_label foo expl '...'; do
4292 compadd "$expl[@]" ... && ret=0
4293 done
4294 ...
4295 fi
4296 return ret
4297 _normal [ -P | -p precommand ]
4299 This is the standard function called to handle completion out‐
4300 side any special -context-. It is called both to complete the
4301 command word and also the arguments for a command. In the sec‐
4302 ond case, _normal looks for a special completion for that com‐
4303 mand, and if there is none it uses the completion for the
4304 -default- context.
4305 A second use is to reexamine the command line specified by the
4307 $words array and the $CURRENT parameter after those have been
4308 modified. For example, the function _precommand, which com‐
4309 pletes after precommand specifiers such as nohup, removes the
4310 first word from the words array, decrements the CURRENT parame‐
4311 ter, then calls `_normal -p $service'. The effect is that
4312 `nohup cmd ...' is treated in the same way as `cmd ...'.
4313 -P Reset the list of precommands. This option should be used
4315 if completing a command line which allows internal com‐
4316 mands (e.g. builtins and functions) regardless of prior
4317 precommands (e.g. `zsh -c').
4318 -p precommand
4320 Append precommand to the list of precommands. This option
4321 should be used in nearly all cases in which -P is not
4322 applicable.
4323 If the command name matches one of the patterns given by one of
4325 the options -p or -P to compdef, the corresponding completion
4326 function is called and then the parameter _compskip is checked.
4327 If it is set completion is terminated at that point even if no
4328 matches have been found. This is the same effect as in the
4329 -first- context.
4330 _options
4332 This can be used to complete the names of shell options. It
4333 provides a matcher specification that ignores a leading `no',
4334 ignores underscores and allows upper-case letters to match their
4335 lower-case counterparts (for example, `glob', `noglob',
4336 `NO_GLOB' are all completed). Any arguments are propagated to
4337 the compadd builtin.
4338 _options_set and _options_unset
4340 These functions complete only set or unset options, with the
4341 same matching specification used in the _options function.
4342 Note that you need to uncomment a few lines in the _main_com‐
4344 plete function for these functions to work properly. The lines
4345 in question are used to store the option settings in effect
4346 before the completion widget locally sets the options it needs.
4347 Hence these functions are not generally used by the completion
4348 system.
4349 _parameters
4351 This is used to complete the names of shell parameters.
4352 The option `-g pattern' limits the completion to parameters
4354 whose type matches the pattern. The type of a parameter is that
4355 shown by `print ${(t)param}', hence judicious use of `*' in pat‐
4356 tern is probably necessary.
4357 All other arguments are passed to the compadd builtin.
4359 _path_files
4361 This function is used throughout the completion system to com‐
4362 plete filenames. It allows completion of partial paths. For
4363 example, the string `/u/i/s/sig' may be completed to
4364 `/usr/include/sys/signal.h'.
4365 The options accepted by both _path_files and _files are:
4367 -f Complete all filenames. This is the default.
4369 -/ Specifies that only directories should be completed.
4371 -g pattern
4373 Specifies that only files matching the pattern should be
4374 completed.
4375 -W paths
4377 Specifies path prefixes that are to be prepended to the
4378 string from the command line to generate the filenames
4379 but that should not be inserted as completions nor shown
4380 in completion listings. Here, paths may be the name of
4381 an array parameter, a literal list of paths enclosed in
4382 parentheses or an absolute pathname.
4383 -F ignored-files
4385 This behaves as for the corresponding option to the com‐
4386 padd builtin. It gives direct control over which file‐
4387 names should be ignored. If the option is not present,
4388 the ignored-patterns style is used.
4389 Both _path_files and _files also accept the following options
4391 which are passed to compadd: `-J', `-V', `-1', `-2', `-n', `-X',
4392 `-M', `-P', `-S', `-q', `-r', and `-R'.
4393 Finally, the _path_files function uses the styles expand,
4395 ambiguous, special-dirs, list-suffixes and file-sort described
4396 above.
4397 _pick_variant [ -b builtin-label ] [ -c command ] [ -r name ]
4400 label=pattern ... label [ arg ... ]
4401 This function is used to resolve situations where a single com‐
4402 mand name requires more than one type of handling, either
4403 because it has more than one variant or because there is a name
4404 clash between two different commands.
4405 The command to run is taken from the first element of the array
4407 words unless this is overridden by the option -c. This command
4408 is run and its output is compared with a series of patterns.
4409 Arguments to be passed to the command can be specified at the
4410 end after all the other arguments. The patterns to try in order
4411 are given by the arguments label=pattern; if the output of `com‐
4412 mand arg ...' contains pattern, then label is selected as the
4413 label for the command variant. If none of the patterns match,
4414 the final command label is selected and status 1 is returned.
4415 If the `-b builtin-label' is given, the command is tested to see
4417 if it is provided as a shell builtin, possibly autoloaded; if
4418 so, the label builtin-label is selected as the label for the
4419 variant.
4420 If the `-r name' is given, the label picked is stored in the
4422 parameter named name.
4423 The results are also cached in the _cmd_variant associative
4425 array indexed by the name of the command run.
4426 _regex_arguments name spec ...
4428 This function generates a completion function name which matches
4429 the specifications specs, a set of regular expressions as
4430 described below. After running _regex_arguments, the function
4431 name should be called as a normal completion function. The pat‐
4432 tern to be matched is given by the contents of the words array
4433 up to the current cursor position joined together with null
4434 characters; no quotation is applied.
4435 The arguments are grouped as sets of alternatives separated by
4437 `|', which are tried one after the other until one matches.
4438 Each alternative consists of a one or more specifications which
4439 are tried left to right, with each pattern matched being
4440 stripped in turn from the command line being tested, until all
4441 of the group succeeds or until one fails; in the latter case,
4442 the next alternative is tried. This structure can be repeated
4443 to arbitrary depth by using parentheses; matching proceeds from
4444 inside to outside.
4445 A special procedure is applied if no test succeeds but the
4447 remaining command line string contains no null character (imply‐
4448 ing the remaining word is the one for which completions are to
4449 be generated). The completion target is restricted to the
4450 remaining word and any actions for the corresponding patterns
4451 are executed. In this case, nothing is stripped from the com‐
4452 mand line string. The order of evaluation of the actions can be
4453 determined by the tag-order style; the various formats supported
4454 by _alternative can be used in action. The descr is used for
4455 setting up the array parameter expl.
4456 Specification arguments take one of following forms, in which
4458 metacharacters such as `(', `)', `#' and `|' should be quoted.
4459 /pattern/ [%lookahead%] [-guard] [:tag:descr:action]
4461 This is a single primitive component. The function tests
4462 whether the combined pattern `(#b)((#B)pattern)looka‐
4463 head*' matches the command line string. If so, `guard'
4464 is evaluated and its return status is examined to deter‐
4465 mine if the test has succeeded. The pattern string `[]'
4466 is guaranteed never to match. The lookahead is not
4467 stripped from the command line before the next pattern is
4468 examined.
4469 The argument starting with : is used in the same manner
4471 as an argument to _alternative.
4472 A component is used as follows: pattern is tested to see
4474 if the component already exists on the command line. If
4475 it does, any following specifications are examined to
4476 find something to complete. If a component is reached
4477 but no such pattern exists yet on the command line, the
4478 string containing the action is used to generate matches
4479 to insert at that point.
4480 /pattern/+ [%lookahead%] [-guard] [:tag:descr:action]
4482 This is similar to `/pattern/ ...' but the left part of
4483 the command line string (i.e. the part already matched by
4484 previous patterns) is also considered part of the comple‐
4485 tion target.
4486 /pattern/- [%lookahead%] [-guard] [:tag:descr:action]
4488 This is similar to `/pattern/ ...' but the actions of the
4489 current and previously matched patterns are ignored even
4490 if the following `pattern' matches the empty string.
4491 ( spec )
4493 Parentheses may be used to groups specs; note each paren‐
4494 thesis is a single argument to _regex_arguments.
4495 spec # This allows any number of repetitions of spec.
4497 spec spec
4499 The two specs are to be matched one after the other as
4500 described above.
4501 spec | spec
4503 Either of the two specs can be matched.
4504 The function _regex_words can be used as a helper function to
4506 generate matches for a set of alternative words possibly with
4507 their own arguments as a command line argument.
4508 Examples:
4510 _regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \
4512 /$'[^\0]#\0'/ :'compadd aaa'
4513 This generates a function _tst that completes aaa as its only
4515 argument. The tag and description for the action have been
4516 omitted for brevity (this works but is not recommended in normal
4517 use). The first component matches the command word, which is
4518 arbitrary; the second matches any argument. As the argument is
4519 also arbitrary, any following component would not depend on aaa
4520 being present.
4521 _regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \
4523 /$'aaa\0'/ :'compadd aaa'
4524 This is a more typical use; it is similar, but any following
4526 patterns would only match if aaa was present as the first argu‐
4527 ment.
4528 _regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \( \
4530 /$'aaa\0'/ :'compadd aaa' \
4531 /$'bbb\0'/ :'compadd bbb' \) \#
4532 In this example, an indefinite number of command arguments may
4534 be completed. Odd arguments are completed as aaa and even argu‐
4535 ments as bbb. Completion fails unless the set of aaa and bbb
4536 arguments before the current one is matched correctly.
4537 _regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \
4539 \( /$'aaa\0'/ :'compadd aaa' \| \
4540 /$'bbb\0'/ :'compadd bbb' \) \#
4541 This is similar, but either aaa or bbb may be completed for any
4543 argument. In this case _regex_words could be used to generate a
4544 suitable expression for the arguments.
4545 _regex_words tag description spec ...
4547 This function can be used to generate arguments for the
4548 _regex_arguments command which may be inserted at any point
4549 where a set of rules is expected. The tag and description give
4550 a standard tag and description pertaining to the current con‐
4551 text. Each spec contains two or three arguments separated by a
4552 colon: note that there is no leading colon in this case.
4553 Each spec gives one of a set of words that may be completed at
4555 this point, together with arguments. It is thus roughly equiva‐
4556 lent to the _arguments function when used in normal (non-regex)
4557 completion.
4558 The part of the spec before the first colon is the word to be
4560 completed. This may contain a *; the entire word, before and
4561 after the * is completed, but only the text before the * is
4562 required for the context to be matched, so that further argu‐
4563 ments may be completed after the abbreviated form.
4564 The second part of spec is a description for the word being com‐
4566 pleted.
4567 The optional third part of the spec describes how words follow‐
4569 ing the one being completed are themselves to be completed. It
4570 will be evaluated in order to avoid problems with quoting. This
4571 means that typically it contains a reference to an array con‐
4572 taining previously generated regex arguments.
4573 The option -t term specifies a terminator for the word instead
4575 of the usual space. This is handled as an auto-removable suffix
4576 in the manner of the option -s sep to _values.
4577 The result of the processing by _regex_words is placed in the
4579 array reply, which should be made local to the calling function.
4580 If the set of words and arguments may be matched repeatedly, a #
4581 should be appended to the generated array at that point.
4582 For example:
4584 local -a reply
4586 _regex_words mydb-commands 'mydb commands' \
4587 'add:add an entry to mydb:$mydb_add_cmds' \
4588 'show:show entries in mydb'
4589 _regex_arguments _mydb "$reply[@]"
4590 _mydb "$@"
4591 This shows a completion function for a command mydb which takes
4593 two command arguments, add and show. show takes no arguments,
4594 while the arguments for add have already been prepared in an
4595 array mydb_add_cmds, quite possibly by a previous call to
4596 _regex_words.
4597 _requested [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag [ name descr [ command [ arg ... ] ]
4599 This function is called to decide whether a tag already regis‐
4600 tered by a call to _tags (see below) has been requested by the
4601 user and hence completion should be performed for it. It
4602 returns status zero if the tag is requested and non-zero other‐
4603 wise. The function is typically used as part of a loop over
4604 different tags as follows:
4605 _tags foo bar baz
4607 while _tags; do
4608 if _requested foo; then
4609 ... # perform completion for foo
4610 fi
4611 ... # test the tags bar and baz in the same way
4612 ... # exit loop if matches were generated
4613 done
4614 Note that the test for whether matches were generated is not
4616 performed until the end of the _tags loop. This is so that the
4617 user can set the tag-order style to specify a set of tags to be
4618 completed at the same time.
4619 If name and descr are given, _requested calls the _description
4621 function with these arguments together with the options passed
4622 to _requested.
4623 If command is given, the _all_labels function will be called
4625 immediately with the same arguments. In simple cases this makes
4626 it possible to perform the test for the tag and the matching in
4627 one go. For example:
4628 local expl ret=1
4630 _tags foo bar baz
4631 while _tags; do
4632 _requested foo expl 'description' \
4633 compadd foobar foobaz && ret=0
4634 ...
4635 (( ret )) || break
4636 done
4637 If the command is not compadd, it must nevertheless be prepared
4639 to handle the same options.
4640 _retrieve_cache cache_identifier
4642 This function retrieves completion information from the file
4643 given by cache_identifier, stored in a directory specified by
4644 the cache-path style which defaults to ~/.zcompcache. The
4645 return status is zero if retrieval was successful. It will only
4646 attempt retrieval if the use-cache style is set, so you can call
4647 this function without worrying about whether the user wanted to
4648 use the caching layer.
4649 See _store_cache below for more details.
4651 _sep_parts
4653 This function is passed alternating arrays and separators as
4654 arguments. The arrays specify completions for parts of strings
4655 to be separated by the separators. The arrays may be the names
4656 of array parameters or a quoted list of words in parentheses.
4657 For example, with the array `hosts=(ftp news)' the call
4658 `_sep_parts '(foo bar)' @ hosts' will complete the string `f'
4659 to `foo' and the string `b@n' to `bar@news'.
4660 This function accepts the compadd options `-V', `-J', `-1',
4662 `-2', `-n', `-X', `-M', `-P', `-S', `-r', `-R', and `-q' and
4663 passes them on to the compadd builtin used to add the matches.
4664 _sequence [ -s sep ] [ -n max ] [ -d ] function [ - ] ...
4666 This function is a wrapper to other functions for completing
4667 items in a separated list. The same function is used to complete
4668 each item in the list. The separator is specified with the -s
4669 option. If -s is omitted it will use `,'. Duplicate values are
4670 not matched unless -d is specified. If there is a fixed or maxi‐
4671 mum number of items in the list, this can be specified with the
4672 -n option.
4673 Common compadd options are passed on to the function. It is pos‐
4675 sible to use compadd directly with _sequence, though _values may
4676 be more appropriate in this situation.
4677 _setup tag [ group ]
4679 This function sets up the special parameters used by the comple‐
4680 tion system appropriately for the tag given as the first argu‐
4681 ment. It uses the styles list-colors, list-packed,
4682 list-rows-first, last-prompt, accept-exact, menu and force-list.
4683 The optional group supplies the name of the group in which the
4685 matches will be placed. If it is not given, the tag is used as
4686 the group name.
4687 This function is called automatically from _description and
4689 hence is not normally called explicitly.
4690 _store_cache cache_identifier param ...
4692 This function, together with _retrieve_cache and _cache_invalid,
4693 implements a caching layer which can be used in any completion
4694 function. Data obtained by costly operations are stored in
4695 parameters; this function then dumps the values of those parame‐
4696 ters to a file. The data can then be retrieved quickly from
4697 that file via _retrieve_cache, even in different instances of
4698 the shell.
4699 The cache_identifier specifies the file which the data should be
4701 dumped to. The file is stored in a directory specified by the
4702 cache-path style which defaults to ~/.zcompcache. The remaining
4703 params arguments are the parameters to dump to the file.
4704 The return status is zero if storage was successful. The func‐
4706 tion will only attempt storage if the use-cache style is set, so
4707 you can call this function without worrying about whether the
4708 user wanted to use the caching layer.
4709 The completion function may avoid calling _retrieve_cache when
4711 it already has the completion data available as parameters.
4712 However, in that case it should call _cache_invalid to check
4713 whether the data in the parameters and in the cache are still
4714 valid.
4715 See the _perl_modules completion function for a simple example
4717 of the usage of the caching layer.
4718 _tags [ [ -C name ] tag ... ]
4720 If called with arguments, these are taken to be the names of
4721 tags valid for completions in the current context. These tags
4722 are stored internally and sorted by using the tag-order style.
4723 Next, _tags is called repeatedly without arguments from the same
4725 completion function. This successively selects the first, sec‐
4726 ond, etc. set of tags requested by the user. The return status
4727 is zero if at least one of the tags is requested and non-zero
4728 otherwise. To test if a particular tag is to be tried, the
4729 _requested function should be called (see above).
4730 If `-C name' is given, name is temporarily stored in the argu‐
4732 ment field (the fifth) of the context in the curcontext parame‐
4733 ter during the call to _tags; the field is restored on exit.
4734 This allows _tags to use a more specific context without having
4735 to change and reset the curcontext parameter (which has the same
4736 effect).
4737 _tilde_files
4739 Like _files, but resolve leading tildes according to the rules
4740 of filename expansion, so the suggested completions don't start
4741 with a `~' even if the filename on the command-line does.
4742 _values [ -O name ] [ -s sep ] [ -S sep ] [ -wC ] desc spec ...
4744 This is used to complete arbitrary keywords (values) and their
4745 arguments, or lists of such combinations.
4746 If the first argument is the option `-O name', it will be used
4748 in the same way as by the _arguments function. In other words,
4749 the elements of the name array will be passed to compadd when
4750 executing an action.
4751 If the first argument (or the first argument after `-O name') is
4753 `-s', the next argument is used as the character that separates
4754 multiple values. This character is automatically added after
4755 each value in an auto-removable fashion (see below); all values
4756 completed by `_values -s' appear in the same word on the command
4757 line, unlike completion using _arguments. If this option is not
4758 present, only a single value will be completed per word.
4759 Normally, _values will only use the current word to determine
4761 which values are already present on the command line and hence
4762 are not to be completed again. If the -w option is given, other
4763 arguments are examined as well.
4764 The first non-option argument, desc, is used as a string to
4766 print as a description before listing the values.
4767 All other arguments describe the possible values and their argu‐
4769 ments in the same format used for the description of options by
4770 the _arguments function (see above). The only differences are
4771 that no minus or plus sign is required at the beginning, values
4772 can have only one argument, and the forms of action beginning
4773 with an equal sign are not supported.
4774 The character separating a value from its argument can be set
4776 using the option -S (like -s, followed by the character to use
4777 as the separator in the next argument). By default the equals
4778 sign will be used as the separator between values and arguments.
4779 Example:
4781 _values -s , 'description' \
4783 '*foo[bar]' \
4784 '(two)*one[number]:first count:' \
4785 'two[another number]::second count:(1 2 3)'
4786 This describes three possible values: `foo', `one', and `two'.
4788 The first is described as `bar', takes no argument and may
4789 appear more than once. The second is described as `number', may
4790 appear more than once, and takes one mandatory argument
4791 described as `first count'; no action is specified, so it will
4792 not be completed. The `(two)' at the beginning says that if the
4793 value `one' is on the line, the value `two' will no longer be
4794 considered a possible completion. Finally, the last value
4795 (`two') is described as `another number' and takes an optional
4796 argument described as `second count' for which the completions
4797 (to appear after an `=') are `1', `2', and `3'. The _values
4798 function will complete lists of these values separated by com‐
4799 mas.
4800 Like _arguments, this function temporarily adds another context
4802 name component to the arguments element (the fifth) of the cur‐
4803 rent context while executing the action. Here this name is just
4804 the name of the value for which the argument is completed.
4805 The style verbose is used to decide if the descriptions for the
4807 values (but not those for the arguments) should be printed.
4808 The associative array val_args is used to report values and
4810 their arguments; this works similarly to the opt_args associa‐
4811 tive array used by _arguments. Hence the function calling _val‐
4812 ues should declare the local parameters state, state_descr,
4813 line, context and val_args:
4814 local context state state_descr line
4816 typeset -A val_args
4817 when using an action of the form `->string'. With this function
4819 the context parameter will be set to the name of the value whose
4820 argument is to be completed. Note that for _values, the state
4821 and state_descr are scalars rather than arrays. Only a single
4822 matching state is returned.
4823 Note also that _values normally adds the character used as the
4825 separator between values as an auto-removable suffix (similar to
4826 a `/' after a directory). However, this is not possible for a
4827 `->string' action as the matches for the argument are generated
4828 by the calling function. To get the usual behaviour, the call‐
4829 ing function can add the separator x as a suffix by passing the
4830 options `-qS x' either directly or indirectly to compadd.
4831 The option -C is treated in the same way as it is by _arguments.
4833 In that case the parameter curcontext should be made local
4834 instead of context (as described above).
4835 _wanted [ -x ] [ -C name ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr command [ arg ...]
4837 In many contexts, completion can only generate one particular
4838 set of matches, usually corresponding to a single tag. However,
4839 it is still necessary to decide whether the user requires
4840 matches of this type. This function is useful in such a case.
4841 The arguments to _wanted are the same as those to _requested,
4843 i.e. arguments to be passed to _description. However, in this
4844 case the command is not optional; all the processing of tags,
4845 including the loop over both tags and tag labels and the genera‐
4846 tion of matches, is carried out automatically by _wanted.
4847 Hence to offer only one tag and immediately add the correspond‐
4849 ing matches with the given description:
4850 local expl
4852 _wanted tag expl 'description' \
4853 compadd matches...
4854 Note that, as for _requested, the command must be able to accept
4856 options to be passed down to compadd.
4857 Like _tags this function supports the -C option to give a dif‐
4859 ferent name for the argument context field. The -x option has
4860 the same meaning as for _description.
4861 _widgets [ -g pattern ]
4863 This function completes names of zle widgets (see the section
4864 `Widgets' in zshzle(1)). The pattern, if present, is matched
4865 against values of the $widgets special parameter, documented in
4866 the section `The zsh/zleparameter Module' in zshmodules(1).
4867
4869 There are some standard variables, initialised by the _main_complete
4870 function and then used from other functions.
4871 The standard variables are:
4873 _comp_caller_options
4875 The completion system uses setopt to set a number of options.
4876 This allows functions to be written without concern for compati‐
4877 bility with every possible combination of user options. However,
4878 sometimes completion needs to know what the user's option pref‐
4879 erences are. These are saved in the _comp_caller_options asso‐
4880 ciative array. Option names, spelled in lowercase without under‐
4881 scores, are mapped to one or other of the strings `on' and
4882 `off'.
4883 _comp_priv_prefix
4885 Completion functions such as _sudo can set the
4886 _comp_priv_prefix array to a command prefix that may then
4887 be used by _call_program to match the privileges when
4888 calling programs to generate matches.
4889 Two more features are offered by the _main_complete function.
4891 The arrays compprefuncs and comppostfuncs may contain names of
4892 functions that are to be called immediately before or after com‐
4893 pletion has been tried. A function will only be called once
4894 unless it explicitly reinserts itself into the array.
4895
4897 In the source distribution, the files are contained in various subdi‐
4898 rectories of the Completion directory. They may have been installed in
4899 the same structure, or into one single function directory. The follow‐
4900 ing is a description of the files found in the original directory
4901 structure. If you wish to alter an installed file, you will need to
4902 copy it to some directory which appears earlier in your fpath than the
4903 standard directory where it appears.
4904 Base The core functions and special completion widgets automatically
4906 bound to keys. You will certainly need most of these, though
4907 will probably not need to alter them. Many of these are docu‐
4908 mented above.
4909 Zsh Functions for completing arguments of shell builtin commands and
4911 utility functions for this. Some of these are also used by
4912 functions from the Unix directory.
4913 Unix Functions for completing arguments of external commands and
4915 suites of commands. They may need modifying for your system,
4916 although in many cases some attempt is made to decide which ver‐
4917 sion of a command is present. For example, completion for the
4918 mount command tries to determine the system it is running on,
4919 while completion for many other utilities try to decide whether
4920 the GNU version of the command is in use, and hence whether the
4921 --help option is supported.
4922 X, AIX, BSD, ...
4924 Completion and utility function for commands available only on
4925 some systems. These are not arranged hierarchically, so, for
4926 example, both the Linux and Debian directories, as well as the X
4927 directory, may be useful on your system.
4928zsh 5.8 February 14, 2020 ZSHCOMPSYS(1)