Command Flags
=============
Completion of the arguments of a command may be different for each
command or may use the default. The behavior when completing the
command word itself may also be separately specified. These correspond
to the following flags and arguments, all of which (except for -L) may
be combined with any combination of the OPTIONS described subsequently
in Note:Option Flags:
COMMAND ...
controls completion for the named commands, which must be listed
last on the command line. If completion is attempted for a
command with a pathname containing slashes and no completion
definition is found, the search is retried with the last pathname
component. If the command starts with a =, completion is tried
with the pathname of the command.
Any of the COMMAND strings may be patterns of the form normally
used for filename generation. These should be be quoted to
protect them from immediate expansion; for example the command
string 'foo*' arranges for completion of the words of any command
beginning with foo. When completion is attempted, all pattern
completions are tried in the reverse order of their definition
until one matches. By default, completion then proceeds as
normal, i.e. the shell will try to generate more matches for the
specific command on the command line; this can be overridden by
including -tn in the flags for the pattern completion.
Note that aliases are expanded before the command name is
determined unless the COMPLETE_ALIASES option is set. Commands
may not be combined with the -C, -D or -T flags.
-C
controls completion when the command word itself is being
completed. If no compctl -C command has been issued, the names
of any executable command (whether in the path or specific to the
shell, such as aliases or functions) are completed.
-D
controls default completion behavior for the arguments of commands
not assigned any special behavior. If no compctl -D command has
been issued, filenames are completed.
-T
supplies completion flags to be used before any other processing is
done, even before processing for compctls defined for specific
commands. This is especially useful when combined with extended
completion (the -x flag, see Note:Extended Completion below).
Using this flag you can define default behavior which will apply
to all commands without exception, or you can alter the standard
behavior for all commands. For example, if your access to the
user database is too slow and/or it contains too many users (so
that completion after `~' is too slow to be usable), you can use
compctl -T -x 's[~] C[0,[^/]#]' -k friends -S/ -tn
to complete the strings in the array friends after a `~'. The
C[...] argument is necessary so that this form of ~-completion is
not tried after the directory name is finished.
-L
lists the existing completion behavior in a manner suitable for
putting into a start-up script; the existing behavior is not
changed. Any combination of the above forms, or the -M flag
(which must follow the -L flag), may be specified, otherwise all
defined completions are listed. Any other flags supplied are
ignored.
_no argument_
If no argument is given, compctl lists all defined completions in
an abbreviated form; with a list of OPTIONS, all completions with
those flags set (not counting extended completion) are listed.
If the + flag is alone and followed immediately by the COMMAND list,
the completion behavior for all the commands in the list is reset to
the default. In other words, completion will subsequently use the
options specified by the -D flag.
The form with -M as the first and only option defines global matching
specifications (see Note:Matching Control). The match specifications
given will be used for every completion attempt (only when using
compctl, not with the new completion system) and are tried in the order
in which they are defined until one generates at least one match. E.g.:
compctl -M '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
This will first try completion without any global match specifications
(the empty string) and, if that generates no matches, will try case
insensitive completion.