Autocomplete of filename in directory

This question is quite similar to this one, but I can’t understand the solution. I also know this tutorial, but still I am unable to understand what I am doing wrong.

I am trying to autocomplete the list of directories that are placed in /something/:

$ ls /something/

One    Other    Three

in a way that this will happen:

$ hi [TAB]

One Other Three
$ hi O[TAB]

One Other

Only when the first word is hi and not only inside /something/.

This is what I am doing in .profile:

_codeComplete()
{
    local cur=${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}
    COMPREPLY=( $(compgen `ls /something/` -- $cur) )

}
complete -F _codeComplete "hi "

Answers:

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Method 1

Try:

_codeComplete()
{
    local cur=${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}
    COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -W "$(ls /something/)" -- $cur) )
}

complete -F _codeComplete hi

You need to specify the -W option in compgen and also quote the command which produces the wordlist.

More information on how to write completion functions on this blog: Writing your own Bash Completion Function

Method 2

Let me try to improve upon the accepted answer.

The original answer will fail with filenames containing whitespace. After some investigation I realize you can change the input separator to end-of-line:

IFS=$'n'

making the function handle spaces correctly.

_codeComplete()
{
    local cur=${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}
    IFS=$'n' tmp=( $(compgen -W "$(ls ~/something/ )" -- $cur))
    COMPREPLY=( "${tmp[@]// / }" )
}

complete -F _codeComplete hi

Method 3

Here’s a version that not only handles spaces, but escapes them, too:

_codeComplete()
{
    local cur=${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}
    local AUTO_COMPLETE_DIRS=$(ls /something/)

    IFS=$'n' COMPREPLY1=( $(compgen -W "$AUTO_COMPLETE_DIRS" -- $cur))
    COMPREPLY2=( "${COMPREPLY1[@]// / }" )
    COMPREPLY=($(printf "%qn" "${COMPREPLY2[@]}"))

}
complete -F _codeComplete "hi "

(Based on dogbane‘s and Eduardo Almeida dos Santos‘ answers, but with escaping as provided by antak on SO: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11536437/1536933)

Method 4

_hi() {
    COMPREPLY=(cd /something/ && compgen -A directory -S / -- $2)
}

complete -o nospace -F _hi hi

Method 5

(this could be a comment but I have <50 reputation)

A fix for EM0 answer, his version handle spaces but also escape them.
But when you try to autocomplete a word that does not match any directory the word is changed to ” instead of providing no completion. Here is a simple fix.

_codeComplete(){
    local cur=${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}

    IFS=$'n' tmp=( $(compgen -W "$(ls /home/matutu/.templates)" -- $cur))
    COMPREPLY=( "${tmp[@]// / }" )
    # check if completion array is not empty
    if [ ${#tmp[@]} -ne 0 ]; then
        COMPREPLY=( $(printf "%qn" "${tmp[@]}") )
    fi
}
complete -F _codeComplete "hi "

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0