Can't get bash completion to work for aliases?

lundmar · May 5, 2018, 7:50am

Hi,

I’m the maintainer of the lxi-tools snap and I simply can’t get my bash completion script working for the lxi command which is an automatic alias:

github.com

lxi-tools/lxi-tools.snapcraft/blob/master/snap/snapcraft.yaml

name: lxi-tools
version: '1.21'
summary: Open source LXI tools
description: >
  Lxi-tools is a collection of open source software tools that enables control
  of LXI compatible instruments such as modern oscilloscopes, power supplies,
  spectrum analyzers etc.

grade: stable
confinement: strict
icon: snap/gui/lxi-tools_256x256.png

apps:
  lxi:
    command: usr/bin/lxi
    completer: usr/share/bash-completion/completions/lxi.snap
    plugs: [home, network, avahi-observe]
    aliases: [lxi]
  lxi-gui:
    command: desktop-launch lxi-gui

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I assume it should work because I’m configuring it the exact same way that I do for the tio snap for which the bash completion script works perfectly fine:

github.com

tio/tio.snapcraft/blob/master/snap/snapcraft.yaml

name: tio
version: '1.32'
summary: A simple TTY terminal I/O application
description: >
  Tio is a simple TTY terminal application which features a straightforward
  commandline interface to easily connect to TTY devices for basic
  input/output.

grade: stable
confinement: classic

apps:
  tio:
    command: bin/tio
    completer: share/bash-completion/completions/tio

parts:
  tio:
    plugin: autotools
    source: https://github.com/tio/tio.git

The only real differences between lxi-tools and tio is that one contains multiple commands (lxi and lxi-gui) while tio does not. Also, tio does not use automatic aliases.

Could it be that bash completion support is broken for automatic aliases?

chipaca · May 5, 2018, 10:08am

The key thing with aliases that’s easy to miss is that the bash completer receives the unaliased full name of the command. So even if you alias foo.bar to bar, the bash completer still gets foo.bar no matter what the user types.

This is because aliases can be ignored, added and removed by users, and tab completion should carry on working

lundmar · May 5, 2018, 4:35pm

Thanks. That did the trick. This is perhaps something that should be added to a doc somewhere.