Finally getting around to switching to zsh (from bash)... I'm trying to understand a bit more about the completion system and could use a quick pointer. I have been able to get other completions to work for command arguments, but I'm struggling with path completions.
I use a simple function (cdp) to jump to project directories. I've set up a very basic completion script, which almost works. I just can't seem to get the behavior that I'm hoping for.
Ideally, typing cdp in{tab} would expand to all projects starting with in, such as:
~/Projects/indigo ~/Projects/instant
Instead, I can only get cdp {tab} to get the ~/Projects path. From there, it will expand the first-level directory. I'd like to be able to just run standard completion for cd once the project directory is expanded.
Here is the completion script, save in _cdp and added to fpath:
#compdef cdp
basedir="$HOME/Projects"
# the function for jumping to directories...
cdp() {
if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
cd $basedir
else
cd "$1"
fi
}
# completion helper...
_alternative "directories:user directory:($basedir/*)"
It's pretty basic, I'm just stuck trying to sort out where to go next. Any thoughts or pointers would be great. Thanks!
UPDATE
I'm finding that cdpath works fine for most of what I need... It would still be interesting to know how to complete this simple function, but for now at least I have a working solution using cdpath and auto_cd.
Related
I discovered this little navigation trick the other day, which allows me to trigger menu completions by number when I enter 'cd -'
~ cd -
0 -- ~/home
1 -- ~/home/stuff
2 -- ~/downloads
3 -- ~/wallpaper
Shell scripting syntax still reads like a foreign language to me, but to get this functionality my directory stack history is piped into the function below.
DIRSTACKSIZE=9
DIRSTACKFILE=~/.zdirs
if [[ -f $DIRSTACKFILE ]] && [[ $#dirstack -eq 0 ]];
then dirstack=( ${(f)"$(< $DIRSTACKFILE)"} )
[[ -d $dirstack[1] ]] && cd $dirstack[1] && cd $OLDPWD
fi
chpwd() {
print -l $PWD ${(u)dirstack} >$DIRSTACKFILE
}
The magical part is being able to choose from the list by number, but I have come to learn that this is probably
because the functionality for navigation by number is baked in to the 'cd -' command. Still, I'd like to use this everywhere.
Any tips writing a wrapper function (or something like that, I guess) for the completion menu that pipes in completions from the menu when it is triggered
and displays them in a numbered list where those numbers select the corresponding element?
I've gotten started reading the manual and what not, but everything remains rather opaque. Thanks!
First off, the code snippet you show has nothing to do with completion. Instead, what it does is to record the directory stack to a file in order to preserve it between zsh sessions. (Personally, I'm not even sure this is a good idea.)
A good place to start investigating zsh completions is the _complete_help ZLE widget. This is bound by default to ^Xh in zsh's viins (vi insert) keyboard map, but is unbound by default in the emacs keymap. If you want to use it in the emacs keymap (the default for many people), you have to bind it:
bindkey -M emacs "^Xh" _complete_help
Now you can type cd - (or cd +) and follow it by CTRL-Xh instead of TAB. You should see the following output:
tags in context :completion::complete:cd::
directory-stack (_directory_stack _cd)
(At this point I'll admit we're getting close to the limits of my knowledge of the zsh completion system.)
Now you can see the completer functions for the directory-stack tag in this particular context. The one you're probably interested in is _directory_stack, and you can see the content of that function with:
functions _directory_stack
…which is where those leading numbers are actually generated.
Arguably it's possible to write similar completion functions for other completion contexts, and apply the using zstyle. However, this is non-trivial completion magic, and beyond anything I have attempted
Is there a way to make zsh complete parameters of commands (just like the fish shell do). For example, when I type ls -- and use TAB it will pop up a list of all ls parameters.
I know that I can use fish shell for this, and I know that fish shell is amazing, but there is a lot of missing functionalities in the fish shell. That's why I am looking to bring this parameter completion in zsh.
Try with single hyphen, like ls -. All built in commands are working fine. Btw for custom oh-my-zsh plugin autocompletion, it depends on plugin configuration.
oh-my-zsh has over 200 plugins for different commands. But unfortunately the auto completions are all hand made. So there will be never auto complete function for every command.
I have a query regarding the execution of a complex command in the makefile of the current system.
I am currently using shell command in the makefile to execute the command. However my command fails as it is a combination of a many commands and execution collects a huge amount of data. The makefile content is something like this:
variable=$(shell ls -lart | grep name | cut -d/ -f2- )
However the make execution fails with execvp failure, since the file listing is huge and I need to parse all of them.
Please suggest me any ways to overcome this issue. Basically I would like to execute a complex command and assign that output to a makefile variable which I want to use later in the program.
(This may take a few iterations.)
This looks like a limitation of the architecture, not a Make limitation. There are several ways to address it, but you must show us how you use variable, otherwise even if you succeed in constructing it, you might not be able to use it as you intend. Please show us the exact operations you intend to perform on variable.
For now I suggest you do a couple of experiments and tell us the results. First, try the assignment with a short list of files (e.g. three) to verify that the assignment does what you intend. Second, in the directory with many files, try:
variable=$(shell ls -lart | grep name)
to see whether the problem is in grep or cut.
Rather than store the list of files in a variable you can easily use shell functionality to get the same result. It's a bit odd that you're flattening a recursive ls to only get the leaves, and then running mkdir -p which is really only useful if the parent directory doesn't exist, but if you know which depths you want to (for example the current directory and all subdirectories one level down) you can do something like this:
directories:
for path in ./*name* ./*/*name*; do \
mkdir "/some/path/$(basename "$path")" || exit 1; \
done
or even
find . -name '*name*' -exec mkdir "/some/path/$(basename {})" \;
Is there a way in a unix shell (specifically Ubuntu) to change directory into the xth directory that was printed from the ls command?
I know you can sort a directory in multiple ways, but using the output from ls to get the xth directory?
An example shell:
$ ls
$ first_dir second_dir third_really_long_and_complex_dir
where I want to move into the third_really_long_and_complex_dir by passing 3 (or 2 in proper array format).
I know I could simply copy and paste, but if I'm already using the keyboard, it would be easier to type something like "cdls 2" or something like that if I knew the index.
The main problem with cd in an interactive session is that you generally want to change the current directory of the shell that is processing the command prompt. That means that launching a sub-shell (e.g. a script) would not help, since any cd calls would not affect the parent shell.
Depending on which shell you are using, however, you might be able to define a function to do this. For example in bash:
function cdls() {
# Save the current state of the nullglob option
SHOPT=`shopt -p nullglob`
# Make sure that */ expands to nothing when no directories are present
shopt -s nullglob
# Get a list of directories
DIRS=(*/)
# Restore the nullblob option state
$SHOPT
# cd using a zero-based index
cd "${DIRS[$1]}"
}
Note that in this example I absolutely refuse to parse the output of ls, for a number of reasons. Instead I let the shell itself retrieve a list of directories (or links to directories)...
That said, I suspect that using this function (or anything to this effect) is a very good way to set yourself up for an enormous mess - like using rm after changing to the wrong directory. File-name auto-completion is dangerous enough already, without forcing yourself to count...
For my developer work I reside in the *nix shell environment pretty much all day, but still can't seem to memorize the name and argument specifics of programs I don't use daily. I wonder how other 'casual amnesiacs' handle this. Do you maintain an big cheat sheet? Do you rehearse the emacs shortcuts when you take your weekly shower? Or is your desk covered under sticky notes?
Using bash_completion is one way of not having to remember the precise syntax of program arguments.
> svn [tab][tab]
--help checkout delete lock pdel propget revert
--version ci diff log pedit proplist rm
-h cleanup export ls pget propset status
add co help merge plist pset switch
annotate commit import mkdir praise remove unlock
blame copy info move propdel rename update
cat cp list mv propedit resolved
If I don't use a command regularly enough to remember what I want, I tend to just use --help or the man pages when I need to.
Or, if I'm lucky, I use CTRL+R and let bash's history search find when I last used it.
Eventually you just remember them, well the set that you use anyway. I used to maintain a README in my home directory when I was starting out but that disappeared many years ago.
One useful command is man -k which you pass a word to and it will return a list of all commands whose man page summary contains that word.
'apropos' is also a very useful command. It will list all commands whose man pages contain the keyword.