<html><head><meta name="color-scheme" content="light dark"></head><body><pre style="word-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;">NAME
    Complete::Bash - Completion routines for bash shell

VERSION
    This document describes version 0.322 of Complete::Bash (from Perl
    distribution Complete-Bash), released on 2019-06-26.

DESCRIPTION
    This module provides routines related to tab completion in bash shell.

  About programmable completion in bash
    Bash allows completion to come from various sources. The simplest is
    from a list of words ("-W"):

     % complete -W "one two three four" somecmd
     % somecmd t&lt;Tab&gt;
     two  three

    Another source is from a bash function ("-F"). The function will receive
    input in two variables: "COMP_WORDS" (array, command-line chopped into
    words) and "COMP_CWORD" (integer, index to the array of words indicating
    the cursor position). It must set an array variable "COMPREPLY" that
    contains the list of possible completion:

     % _foo()
     {
       local cur
       COMPREPLY=()
       cur=${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}
       COMPREPLY=($( compgen -W '--help --verbose --version' -- $cur ) )
     }
     % complete -F _foo foo
     % foo &lt;Tab&gt;
     --help  --verbose  --version

    And yet another source is an external command ("-C") including, from a
    Perl script. The command receives two environment variables: "COMP_LINE"
    (string, raw command-line) and "COMP_POINT" (integer, cursor location).
    Program must split "COMP_LINE" into words, find the word to be
    completed, complete that, and return the list of words one per-line to
    STDOUT. An example:

     % cat foo-complete
     #!/usr/bin/perl
     use Complete::Bash qw(parse_cmdline format_completion);
     use Complete::Util qw(complete_array_elem);
     my ($words, $cword) = @{ parse_cmdline() };
     my $res = complete_array_elem(array=&gt;[qw/--help --verbose --version/], word=&gt;$words-&gt;[$cword]);
     print format_completion($res);

     % complete -C foo-complete foo
     % foo --v&lt;Tab&gt;
     --verbose --version

  About the routines in this module
    First of all, "parse_cmdline()" is the function to parse raw
    command-line (such as what you get from bash in "COMP_LINE" environment
    variable) into words. This makes it easy for the other functions to
    generate completion answer. See the documentation for that function for
    more details.

    "format_completion()" is what you use to format completion answer
    structure for bash.

FUNCTIONS
  format_completion
    Usage:

     format_completion($completion, $opts) -&gt; str|array

    Format completion for output (for shell).

    Bash accepts completion reply in the form of one entry per line to
    STDOUT. Some characters will need to be escaped. This function helps you
    do the formatting, with some options.

    This function accepts completion answer structure as described in the
    "Complete" POD. Aside from "words", this function also recognizes these
    keys:

    *   "as" (str): Either "string" (the default) or "array" (to return
        array of lines instead of the lines joined together). Returning
        array is useful if you are doing completion inside "Term::ReadLine",
        for example, where the library expects an array.

    *   "esc_mode" (str): Escaping mode for entries. Either "default" (most
        nonalphanumeric characters will be escaped), "shellvar" (like
        "default", but dollar sign "$" will not be escaped, convenient when
        completing environment variables for example), "filename" (currently
        equals to "default"), "option" (currently equals to "default"), or
        "none" (no escaping will be done).

    *   "path_sep" (str): If set, will enable "path mode", useful for
        completing/drilling-down path. Below is the description of "path
        mode".

        In shell, when completing filename (e.g. "foo") and there is only a
        single possible completion (e.g. "foo" or "foo.txt"), the shell will
        display the completion in the buffer and automatically add a space
        so the user can move to the next argument. This is also true when
        completing other values like variables or program names.

        However, when completing directory (e.g. "/et" or "Downloads") and
        there is solely a single completion possible and it is a directory
        (e.g. "/etc" or "Downloads"), the shell automatically adds the path
        separator character instead ("/etc/" or "Downloads/"). The user can
        press Tab again to complete for files/directories inside that
        directory, and so on. This is obviously more convenient compared to
        when shell adds a space instead.

        The "path_sep" option, when set, will employ a trick to mimic this
        behaviour. The trick is, if you have a completion array of
        "['foo/']", it will be changed to "['foo/', 'foo/ ']" (the second
        element is the first element with added space at the end) to prevent
        bash from adding a space automatically.

        Path mode is not restricted to completing filesystem paths. Anything
        path-like can use it. For example when you are completing Java or
        Perl module name (e.g. "com.company.product.whatever" or
        "File::Spec::Unix") you can use this mode (with "path_sep"
        appropriately set to, e.g. "." or "::").

    This function is not exported by default, but exportable.

    Arguments ('*' denotes required arguments):

    *   $completion* =&gt; *hash|array*

        Completion answer structure.

        Either an array or hash. See function description for more details.

    *   $opts =&gt; *hash*

        Specify options.

        Known options:

        *   word

            A workaround. String. For now, see source code for more details.

        *   show_summaries

            Whether to show item's summaries. Boolean, default is from
            COMPLETE_BASH_SHOW_SUMMARIES environment variable or 1.

            An answer item contain summary, which is a short description
            about the item, e.g.:

              [{word=&gt;"-a"    , summary=&gt;"Show hidden files"},
               {word=&gt;"-l"    , summary=&gt;"Show details"},
               {word=&gt;"--sort", summary=&gt;"Specify sort order"}],

            When summaries are not shown, user will just be seeing something
            like:

              -a
              -l
              --sort

            But when summaries are shown, user will see:

              -a         -- Show hidden files
              -l         -- Show details
              --sort     -- Specify sort order

            which is quite helpful.

    Return value: Formatted string (or array, if `as` is set to `array`)
    (str|array)

  join_wordbreak_words
    Usage:

     join_wordbreak_words() -&gt; [status, msg, payload, meta]

    Post-process parse_cmdline() result by joining some words.

    "parse_cmdline()", like bash, splits some characters that are considered
    as word-breaking characters:

     "'@&gt;&lt;=;|&amp;(:

    So if command-line is:

     command -MData::Dump bob@example.org

    then they will be parsed as:

     ["command", "-MData", "::", "Dump", "bob", '@', "example.org"]

    Normally in Perl applications, we want ":", "@" to be part of word. So
    this routine will convert the above into:

     ["command", "-MData::Dump", 'bob@example.org']

    This function is not exported by default, but exportable.

    No arguments.

    Returns an enveloped result (an array).

    First element (status) is an integer containing HTTP status code (200
    means OK, 4xx caller error, 5xx function error). Second element (msg) is
    a string containing error message, or 'OK' if status is 200. Third
    element (payload) is optional, the actual result. Fourth element (meta)
    is called result metadata and is optional, a hash that contains extra
    information.

    Return value: (any)

  parse_cmdline
    Usage:

     parse_cmdline($cmdline, $point, $opts) -&gt; array

    Parse shell command-line for processing by completion routines.

    This function basically converts "COMP_LINE" (str) and "COMP_POINT"
    (int) into something like (but not exactly the same as) "COMP_WORDS"
    (array) and "COMP_CWORD" (int) that bash supplies to shell functions.

    The differences with bash are (these differences are mostly for parsing
    convenience for programs that use this routine; this comparison is made
    against bash versions 4.2-4.3):

    1) quotes and backslashes are stripped (bash's "COMP_WORDS" contains all
    the quotes and backslashes);

    2) quoted phrase that contains spaces, or phrase that contains escaped
    spaces is parsed as a single word. For example:

     command "First argument" Second\ argument

       bash would split it as (represented as Perl):

     ["command", "\"First", "argument\"", "Second\\", "argument"]

       which is not very convenient. We parse it into:

     ["command", "First argument", "Second argument"]

    3) variables are substituted with their values from environment
    variables except for the current word ("COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]") (bash
    does not perform variable substitution for "COMP_WORDS"). However, note
    that special shell variables that are not environment variables like $0,
    $_, $IFS will not be replaced correctly because bash does not export
    those variables for us.

    4) tildes ("~") are expanded with user's home directory except for the
    current word (bash does not perform tilde expansion for "COMP_WORDS");

    Caveats:

    *   Like bash, we group non-whitespace word-breaking characters into its
        own word. By default "COMP_WORDBREAKS" is:

        "'@&gt;&lt;=;|&amp;(:

        So if raw command-line is:

        command --foo=bar http://example.com:80 mail@example.org Foo::Bar

        then the parse result will be:

        ["command", "--foo", "=", "bar", "http", ":", "//example.com", ":",
        "80", "Foo", "::", "Bar"]

        which is annoying sometimes. But we follow bash here so we can more
        easily accept input from a joined "COMP_WORDS" if we write
        completion bash functions, e.g. (in the example, "foo" is a Perl
        script):

        *foo () { local words=(${COMP*CWORDS[@]}) # add things to words, etc
        local point=... # calculate the new point COMPREPLY=(
        "COMP_LINE="foo ${words[@]}" COMP_POINT=$point foo" ) }

        To avoid these word-breaking characters to be split/grouped, we can
        escape them with backslash or quote them, e.g.:

        command "http://example.com:80" Foo\:\:Bar

        which bash will parse as:

        ["command", "\"http://example.com:80\"", "Foo\:\:Bar"]

        and we parse as:

        ["command", "http://example.com:80", "Foo::Bar"]

    *   Due to the way bash parses the command line (see above), the two
        below are equivalent:

        % cmd --foo=bar % cmd --foo = bar

    Because they both expand to "['--foo', '=', 'bar']". But obviously
    Getopt::Long does not regard the two as equivalent.

    This function is not exported by default, but exportable.

    Arguments ('*' denotes required arguments):

    *   $cmdline =&gt; *str*

        Command-line, defaults to COMP_LINE environment.

    *   $opts =&gt; *hash*

        Options.

        Optional. Known options:

        *   "truncate_current_word" (bool). If set to 1, will truncate
            current word to the position of cursor, for example ("^" marks
            the position of cursor): "--vers^oo" to "--vers" instead of
            "--versoo". This is more convenient when doing tab completion.

    *   $point =&gt; *int*

        Point/position to complete in command-line, defaults to COMP_POINT.

    Return value: (array)

    Return a 2-element array: "[$words, $cword]". $words is array of str,
    equivalent to "COMP_WORDS" provided by bash to shell functions. $cword
    is an integer, roughly equivalent to "COMP_CWORD" provided by bash to
    shell functions. The word to be completed is at "$words-&gt;[$cword]".

    Note that COMP_LINE includes the command name. If you want the
    command-line arguments only (like in @ARGV), you need to strip the first
    element from $words and reduce $cword by 1.

  point
    Usage:

     point($cmdline, $marker) -&gt; any

    Return line with point marked by a marker.

    This is a utility function useful for testing/debugging.
    "parse_cmdline()" expects a command-line and a cursor position ($line,
    $point). This routine expects $line with a marker character (by default
    it's the caret, "^") and return ($line, $point) to feed to
    "parse_cmdline()".

    Example:

     point("^foo") # =&gt; ("foo", 0)
     point("fo^o") # =&gt; ("foo", 2)

    This function is not exported by default, but exportable.

    Arguments ('*' denotes required arguments):

    *   $cmdline =&gt; *str*

        Command-line which contains a marker character.

    *   $marker =&gt; *str* (default: "^")

        Marker character.

    Return value: (any)

ENVIRONMENT
  COMPLETE_BASH_SHOW_SUMMARIES
    Bool. Will set the default for "show_summaries" option in
    "format_completion".

  COMPLETE_BASH_TRACE
    Bool. If set to true, will produce more log statements to Log::ger.

HOMEPAGE
    Please visit the project's homepage at
    &lt;https://metacpan.org/release/Complete-Bash&gt;.

SOURCE
    Source repository is at
    &lt;https://github.com/perlancar/perl-Complete-Bash&gt;.

BUGS
    Please report any bugs or feature requests on the bugtracker website
    &lt;https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=Complete-Bash&gt;

    When submitting a bug or request, please include a test-file or a patch
    to an existing test-file that illustrates the bug or desired feature.

SEE ALSO
    Complete, the convention that this module follows.

    Some higher-level modules that use this module (so you don't have to use
    this module directly): Getopt::Long::Complete (via
    Complete::Getopt::Long), Getopt::Long::Subcommand, Perinci::CmdLine (via
    Perinci::Sub::Complete).

    Other modules related to bash shell tab completion: Bash::Completion,
    Getopt::Complete, Term::Bash::Completion::Generator.

    Programmable Completion section in Bash manual:
    &lt;https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Programmable-Complet
    ion.html&gt;

AUTHOR
    perlancar &lt;perlancar@cpan.org&gt;

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
    This software is copyright (c) 2019, 2018, 2016, 2015, 2014 by
    perlancar@cpan.org.

    This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
    the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

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