mbrubeck / compleat

Generate command-line completions using a simple DSL.

Compleat

Generate tab completion for any shell command by specifying its usage in a familiar manpage-like format. For example, a usage specification for top(1):

top [-b | -c | -H | -i | -s | -S | -d <delay> | -n <num> | -p <pid> ...] ... ;
top (-h|-v)

Supported shells are bash, fish, and zsh.

Installation

Get the source code: git clone git://github.com/mbrubeck/compleat.git

Next, install Stack.

To install Compleat in your system, run:

make install

This will install the compleat binary into ~/.local/bin and the compleat_setup script into ~/.bash_completion.d.

bash

To enable compleat in bash, add the following line to your .bashrc. (Adjust the path if you configured with a custom prefix.)

source ~/.bash_completion.d/compleat_setup

and install your .usage files in a directory named /etc/compleat.d or ~/.compleat:

mkdir ~/compleat
cp examples/* ~/compleat

Restart your shell to begin using completions:

exec bash

zsh

zsh support requires zsh >= 4.2.1, and currently uses zsh's bash-compatibility mode rather than taking advantage of zsh's extended completion features.

To enable compleat in zsh, make the following change to your .zshrc. (Adjust the path if you configured with a custom prefix.)

If you used the zsh wizard (zsh-newuser-install) to set up your zshrc, it should contain lines like the following (if they don't exist, simply add the lines in the change below):

autoload -Uz compinit
compinit

Change these to:

autoload -Uz compinit bashcompinit
compinit
bashcompinit

source ~/.bash_completion.d/compleat_setup

and install your .usage files in a directory named /etc/compleat.d or ~/.compleat:

sudo mkdir /etc/compleat.d
sudo cp examples/* /etc/compleat.d

Restart your shell to begin using completions:

exec zsh

fish

To install the fish completion file, run:

make install-fish

To enable compleat in fish, add the following line to your ~/.config/fish/config.fish.

source ~/.config/fish/compleat_setup.fish

and install your .usage files in a directory named /etc/compleat.d or ~/.compleat:

mkdir ~/compleat
cp examples/* ~/compleat

Restart your shell to begin using completions:

exec fish

Testing

Type top and then press Tab a few times to see the example files in action.

Syntax

A usage file contains commands and definitions, separated by semicolons.

A command consists of a command name followed by a pattern. The command name can be any atom. If there is more than one command in the file, compleat will attempt to match each of them against the input line.

An atom consists of letters, numbers, and any of the characters -_/@=+.,:, or any string enclosed in double quotes with C/Java-style backslash escapes.

The following are valid patterns:

• Any atom matches itself: foo matches the string foo. "x\\y" matches the string x\y.
• a b matches a followed by b.
• a b | c matches either a b or c.
• [a] matches zero or one occurrences of a.
• a ... matches one or more occurrences of a.
• [a] ... matches zero or more occurrences of a.

Use parentheses to group patterns:

• a (b | c) matches a followed by either b or c.
• (a | b) ... matches a or b followed by any number of additional a or b.

Patterns may also include variables:

• name = value; defines a new variable. The name can be any atom, and the value can be any pattern. Then <name> in a pattern refers to the value as a sub-pattern.

• name = !command; defines a variable that uses a shell command to generate suggested completions. The shell command should print one suggested completion per line. The $COMP_LINE and $COMP_CWORD environment will contain the input line and the current word being completed.

• If no value is defined for name, then the pattern <name> will match any word.

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2009 Matt Brubeck

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.