bash-completion needs match "fallback" function. (supported but upstream doc not packaged)

[Vanessa Dannenberg]

Binary package hint: bash-completion

It would make the most sense if I just given an example. Suppose I have a DVD .ISO file buried a couple levels down in my filesystem, that I want to open with XINE, and I type the following (knowing for certain it will resolve to exactly one match):

xine /ra{tab}dir{tab}som{tab}

It would normally expand to something like:

xine /rainbird/directory/somefile.iso

However, bash-completion prevents this match,probably because it thinks XINE can't play an ISO file. It of course can play them (provided I add "dvd://" in front of the path, after I'm done tabbing)

I think the best bet would be to make bash-completion default to normal, unfiltered filename matches if it can't find a specific filetype in its configuration (equivalent to what you'd get without the package installed at all). I think this would solve a number of other problems such as that mentioned in bug #115224 , bug #127605 , bug #156200 , and probably a number of others.

[Peter Cordes (peter-cordes)]

You can get default completion behaviour (not the special-case stuff) for a command by doing e.g. \xine. \cmd also disables alias expansion.

 The \ just quotes the first letter of the command, but that's enough to disable some stuff that bash would otherwise do.

[Peter Cordes (peter-cordes)]

another workaround: as /usr/share/doc/bash-completion/README.gz suggests, use M-/ to use bash's builtin filename completion, rather than calling the programmable completion functions. That will complete on any filename, since it doesn't have any command-specific filtering.

[Peter Cordes (peter-cordes)]

Oh, this is supported and documented in a .txt that the .deb doesn't ship.

simply put
COMP_FILEDIR_FALLBACK=1
in your ~/.bash_completion (or ~/.bashrc)

doc/bash_completion.txt in the source tree.

https://alioth.debian.org/plugins/scmgit/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=bash-completion/bash-completion.git;a=blob;f=doc/bash_completion.txt;h=c6e53d4c0534416d2507607ee9a90f1b1dd3abe9;hb=HEAD

 close this bug once Ubuntu ships upstream's doc/bash_completion.txt