Debian Bug report logs - #618734
bash completion: 'tar jcf <TAB>' should complete arbitrary filenames

Toggle useless messages

Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Adam Nielsen <adam.nielsen@uq.edu.au>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: bash: autocomplete fails with 'tar jcvf' and non .bz2 file

Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:59:07 +1000

Package: bash
Version: 4.1-3
Severity: minor

When typing 'tar jcvf' and using tab to autocomplete, the autocomplete ignores
files without .bz2 extensions.  For example, if you rename an archive to
really-long-filename.tar.bz2.old (adding .old onto the end), when you try to
recreate the archive by typing "tar jcvf really<tab>" (intending to delete the
'.old' part) it won't autocomplete so you have to type the whole long filename
from scratch.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0
  APT prefers squeeze-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'squeeze-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages bash depends on:
ii  base-files                6.0            Debian base system miscellaneous f
ii  dash                      0.5.5.1-7.4    POSIX-compliant shell
ii  debianutils               3.4            Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  libc6                     2.11.2-10      Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libncurses5               5.7+20100313-5 shared libraries for terminal hand

Versions of packages bash recommends:
ii  bash-completion               1:1.2-3    programmable completion for the ba

Versions of packages bash suggests:
pn  bash-doc                      <none>     (no description available)

-- no debconf information

Message #10 received at 618734@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>

To: Adam Nielsen <adam.nielsen@uq.edu.au>

Cc: 618734@bugs.debian.org, bash-completion@packages.debian.org

Subject: Re: bash: autocomplete fails with 'tar jcvf' and non .bz2 file

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 19:41:39 -0500

reassign 618734 bash-completion 1:1.2-3
severity 618734 wishlist
retitle 618734 bash completion: add keybinding to just complete pathnames
tags 618734 + upstream
quit

Hi Adam,

Adam Nielsen wrote:

> For example, if you rename an archive to
> really-long-filename.tar.bz2.old (adding .old onto the end), when you try to
> recreate the archive by typing "tar jcvf really<tab>" (intending to delete the
> '.old' part) it won't autocomplete so you have to type the whole long filename
> from scratch.

I think this behavior is intended.  Uninstalling bash-completion might
be an okay workaround.

Thanks for reporting,
Jonathan

Message #27 received at 618734@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Adam Nielsen <adam.nielsen@uq.edu.au>

To: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>

Cc: 618734@bugs.debian.org, bash-completion@packages.debian.org

Subject: Re: bash: autocomplete fails with 'tar jcvf' and non .bz2 file

Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:45:11 +1000

>> For example, if you rename an archive to
>> really-long-filename.tar.bz2.old (adding .old onto the end), when you try to
>> recreate the archive by typing "tar jcvf really<tab>" (intending to delete the
>> '.old' part) it won't autocomplete so you have to type the whole long filename
>> from scratch.
>
> I think this behavior is intended.  Uninstalling bash-completion might
> be an okay workaround.

Thanks for the quick reply!  Just for the record I can see the reasoning 
behind this behaviour, but I think it might be wrong when using the "c" 
option to create an archive.  I can certainly see the usefulness of only 
matching .bz2 files when extracting an archive, but when creating an 
archive I don't think you would often want to create it over the top of 
an existing file - so if you use tab completion in this case, you are 
probably wanting it to match any old file to save typing.

Also thanks for the retitle - I did try Alt+Tab, Ctrl+Tab, etc. in case 
there was a key to unconditionally complete the pathname so this would 
be a good solution too.

Thanks again,
Adam.

Message #32 received at 618734@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>

To: Adam Nielsen <adam.nielsen@uq.edu.au>

Cc: 618734@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: bash: autocomplete fails with 'tar jcvf' and non .bz2 file

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 20:55:28 -0500

clone 618734 -1
retitle 618734 bash completion: 'tar jcf <TAB>' should complete arbitrary filenames
severity 618734 minor
quit

Adam Nielsen wrote:

> Just for the record I can see the
> reasoning behind this behaviour, but I think it might be wrong when
> using the "c" option to create an archive.

There is definitely more going on than I thought --- 'tar cjf <TAB>'
does the Right Thing™ while 'tar jcf <TAB>' does not.  See
/etc/bash_completion.d/tar for details.  So this does look like a
genuine bug. :)

Let's file my side-suggestion separately.

Thanks for clarifying.
Jonathan

Message #43 received at 618734@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>

To: 618734@bugs.debian.org

Cc: Adam Nielsen <adam.nielsen@uq.edu.au>

Subject: [RFC/PATCH] 'tar jcf <TAB>' should complete arbitrary filenames

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:21:44 -0500

Currently "tar cjf <TAB>" completes arbitrary filenames, while
"tar jcf <TAB>" completes files with a .bz2 suffix.

It is useful to only match .bz2 files when extracting an archive, but
when using "c" to create an archive I don't think you would often want
to create it over the top of an existing file.  So if you use tab
completion in this case, you are probably wanting it to match any old
file to save typing.  Make it so.

Reported-by: Adam Nielsen <adam.nielsen@uq.edu.au>
---
How about something like this patch?  It occurs to me that

 * "tar -rjf <TAB>" completes arbitrary files instead of just
   bzip2 files;

 * the pattern "tar --compare <TAB>" triggers this case by
   accident; similarly, "tar --diff <TAB>" triggers the -f
   case by accident.

With a fixup for those, would this be a sane thing to do?

Thoughts, bug reports, improvements welcome.

 CHANGES         |    4 ++++
 completions/tar |    2 +-
 2 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index eedac4e..b3ba70e 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -10,6 +10,10 @@ bash-completion (2.x)
   [ Guillaume Rousse ]
   * added puppet completion, using work from Mathieu Parent (sathieudebian.org)
 
+  [ Jonathan Nieder ]
+  * Complete arbitrary filenames in the argument to "tar zcf", like we already
+    do for "tar czf" (Debian: #618734)
+
  -- David Paleino <d.paleino@gmail.com>  Sun, 06 Feb 2011 21:46:37 +0100
 
 bash-completion (1.3)
diff --git a/completions/tar b/completions/tar
index a5c0249..5dfaca5 100644
--- a/completions/tar
+++ b/completions/tar
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ _tar()
     fi
 
     case ${COMP_WORDS[1]} in
-        ?(-)[cr]*f)
+        ?(-)r*f | *c*f)
             _filedir
             return 0
             ;;
-- 
1.7.4.1

Message #48 received at 618734@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>

To: 618734@bugs.debian.org

Cc: Adam Nielsen <adam.nielsen@uq.edu.au>

Subject: Re: [RFC/PATCH] 'tar jcf <TAB>' should complete arbitrary filenames

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:55:06 -0500

Jonathan Nieder wrote:

>  * "tar -rjf <TAB>" completes arbitrary files instead of just
>    bzip2 files;
>
>  * the pattern "tar --compare <TAB>" triggers this case by
>    accident; similarly, "tar --diff <TAB>" triggers the -f
>    case by accident.

For "--compare" read "--comparef". ;-)  The above two notes hint at
something probably worth addressing, but not so relevant for this
bug/patch.  So please feel free to pretend I presented the patch
above as ready for application --- it very well might be.

Sorry for the noise and thanks again for the help.

Good night,
Jonathan

Message #53 received at 618734@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ville Skyttä <ville.skytta@iki.fi>

To: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>, 618734@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [Bash-completion-devel] Bug#618734: [RFC/PATCH] 'tar jcf <TAB>' should complete arbitrary filenames

Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2011 18:44:29 +0200

Upstream git now has some consistency and other improvements in this area:

http://git.debian.org/?p=bash-completion/bash-completion.git;a=commitdiff;h=0ae464e5802855c9049d128a37e0de91b564c8b6
http://git.debian.org/?p=bash-completion/bash-completion.git;a=commitdiff;h=f973eb043ced563230eb3e3f8634aa2d42ba0258

Message #60 received at 618734@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>

To: Ville Skyttä <ville.skytta@iki.fi>

Cc: 618734@bugs.debian.org, 618734-submitter@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [RFC/PATCH] 'tar jcf <TAB>' should complete arbitrary filenames

Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2011 01:04:23 -0500

Ville Skyttä wrote:

> Upstream git now has some consistency and other improvements in this area:

What do you think of Adam's suggestion that "tar cf", unlike "tar rf",
shouldn't look for existing .tar files at all?

In practice, commit 14fc9f29 (If _filedir 'ext' returns nothing, just
fallback to generic file completion, 2011-03-20) would mostly take
care of the use case I suspect, so this is mostly a question about
principles.  Your patches definitely improve things regardless;
thanks. :)

Message #68 received at 618734@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ville Skyttä <ville.skytta@iki.fi>

To: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>

Cc: 618734@bugs.debian.org, 618734-submitter@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [RFC/PATCH] 'tar jcf <TAB>' should complete arbitrary filenames

Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 00:03:23 +0300

On 03/27/2011 09:04 AM, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> 
> What do you think of Adam's suggestion that "tar cf", unlike "tar rf",
> shouldn't look for existing .tar files at all?

My personal opinion is that looking for existing tar files with "c" is a
good thing.  I use that behavior regularly to overwrite existing tars.

> In practice, commit 14fc9f29 (If _filedir 'ext' returns nothing, just
> fallback to generic file completion, 2011-03-20) [...]

I have some reservations about that patch, and will post to the bash
completion mailing list about it soon.

Message #78 received at 618734-close@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: David Paleino <dapal@debian.org>

To: 618734-close@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Bug#618734: fixed in bash-completion 1:1.90-1

Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:17:12 +0000

Source: bash-completion
Source-Version: 1:1.90-1

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
bash-completion, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive:

bash-completion_1.90-1.debian.tar.gz
  to main/b/bash-completion/bash-completion_1.90-1.debian.tar.gz
bash-completion_1.90-1.dsc
  to main/b/bash-completion/bash-completion_1.90-1.dsc
bash-completion_1.90-1_all.deb
  to main/b/bash-completion/bash-completion_1.90-1_all.deb
bash-completion_1.90.orig.tar.bz2
  to main/b/bash-completion/bash-completion_1.90.orig.tar.bz2



A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 618734@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
David Paleino <dapal@debian.org> (supplier of updated bash-completion package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@debian.org)


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Format: 1.8
Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:03:51 +0100
Source: bash-completion
Binary: bash-completion
Architecture: source all
Version: 1:1.90-1
Distribution: experimental
Urgency: low
Maintainer: Bash Completion Maintainers <bash-completion-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Changed-By: David Paleino <dapal@debian.org>
Description: 
 bash-completion - programmable completion for the bash shell
Closes: 577933 593835 604393 615134 618734 619014 622383 623680 625234 642526
Changes: 
 bash-completion (1:1.90-1) experimental; urgency=low
 .
   * bash-completion 2 preview: dynamic loading of completions
     - optionally fallback to generic file completion if _filedir
       returns nothing (Closes: #619014, LP: #533985)
     - various fixes (Closes: #622383)
     - apt: add 'download' to subcommands (Closes: #625234, LP: #720541)
     - aptitude: add 'versions' command (Closes: #604393)
     - dpkg-query: use the 'dpkg' completion (Closes: #642526)
     - lintian: remove --unpack-level (Closes: #623680)
     - rrdtool: complete filenames after commands (Closes: #577933)
     - provide profile.d hook for per user disabling of bash_completion
       (Closes: #593835)
     - mutt: support tildes when recursively sourcing muttrc files
       (Closes: #615134)
     - tar: improve tar *[cr]*f completions (Closes: #618734)
   * More checks in update-bash-completion: avoid unnecessary
     sourcing of completion if symlink already exists
   * Add message for users before they report a bug (debian/bug-presubj),
     I'm kind of fed-up with bugs caused by acroread.sh :/
   * Removed patches merged upstream
   * Drop trigger-based completion loading
   * Standards-Version bump to 3.9.2, no changes needed
Checksums-Sha1: 
 748b796aa5f70f17b2c3ec449dd7a8d66933bb8a 1394 bash-completion_1.90-1.dsc
 aa1a1f4e34bff93f8227c1a200de310a04a21e86 228640 bash-completion_1.90.orig.tar.bz2
 e5deb79d3aa91dff60baee0d4f1675fc5fd6ea2b 13057 bash-completion_1.90-1.debian.tar.gz
 64a6a900971b2bc4d6d8706345f3037c81b85762 179058 bash-completion_1.90-1_all.deb
Checksums-Sha256: 
 78c827e512975c885b3cb09a2a50676d2f8bcd3c81b712a18035b288bfa0d92a 1394 bash-completion_1.90-1.dsc
 293084b7584e89734002a49688ca9aea2bab16ca4750b30f66b62a373750c41c 228640 bash-completion_1.90.orig.tar.bz2
 06975fe1a3291aadad7489d381183bcc64731f6b256647b8a5e277bb16ae97a8 13057 bash-completion_1.90-1.debian.tar.gz
 4f78b12ab95b5ed24c8fe63e26d9f1635f189ccb9c7f7b503af101c0dfe92fe0 179058 bash-completion_1.90-1_all.deb
Files: 
 adf23b480b86c55d9e337258164785a0 1394 shells standard bash-completion_1.90-1.dsc
 82635839d83074eba923822fd584490c 228640 shells standard bash-completion_1.90.orig.tar.bz2
 ab9637c3c2aea423af97932b19bdc832 13057 shells standard bash-completion_1.90-1.debian.tar.gz
 e43e91227a8d739a095577d51a1e0b78 179058 shells standard bash-completion_1.90-1_all.deb

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAk6yhD8ACgkQ5qqQFxOSsXQUSACfdui594rcT9CfiI3CyWfl60xa
UpMAoKbynog3IF+e2EOHcrFL6VBNbHPO
=Wi2f
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Send a report that this bug log contains spam.