Completion Functions

GNU Readline Library. Node: Completion Functions

Here is the complete list of callable completion functions present in Readline.

Function: int rl_complete_internal (int what_to_do): Complete the word at or before point. what_to_do says what to do with the completion. A value of `?' means list the possible completions. `TAB' means do standard completion. `*' means insert all of the possible completions. `!' means to display all of the possible completions, if there is more than one, as well as performing partial completion.

Function: int rl_complete (int ignore, int invoking_key): Complete the word at or before point. You have supplied the function that does the initial simple matching selection algorithm (see completion_matches () and rl_completion_entry_function). The default is to do filename completion. This calls rl_complete_internal () with an argument depending on invoking_key.

Function: int rl_possible_completions (int count, int invoking_key)): List the possible completions. See description of rl_complete (). This calls rl_complete_internal () with an argument of `?'.

Function: int rl_insert_completions (int count, int invoking_key)): Insert the list of possible completions into the line, deleting the partially-completed word. See description of rl_complete (). This calls rl_complete_internal () with an argument of `*'.

Function: char ** completion_matches (char *text, CPFunction *entry_func): Returns an array of (char *) which is a list of completions for text. If there are no completions, returns (char **)NULL. The first entry in the returned array is the substitution for text. The remaining entries are the possible completions. The array is terminated with a NULL pointer.
entry_func is a function of two args, and returns a (char *). The first argument is text. The second is a state argument; it is zero on the first call, and non-zero on subsequent calls. entry_func returns a NULL pointer to the caller when there are no more matches.

Function: char * filename_completion_function (char *text, int state): A generator function for filename completion in the general case. Note that completion in Bash is a little different because of all the pathnames that must be followed when looking up completions for a command. The Bash source is a useful reference for writing custom completion functions.

Function: char * username_completion_function (char *text, int state): A completion generator for usernames. text contains a partial username preceded by a random character (usually `~'). As with all completion generators, state is zero on the first call and non-zero for subsequent calls.