Debian Bug report logs - #624703
bash-completion makes bash report an error and doesn't complete

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

From: Frank Harwald <franki777@xmail.net>

To: submit@bugs.debian.org

Subject: bash-completion makes bash report an error and doesn't complete

Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 11:50:26 -0700

Package: bash-completion
Version: 1.2-3

There is a bug in bash-completion that makes it print out an error message when trying
to complete any command by hitting <TAB> when bash_completion is loaded and the current
command doesn't get any completion at all. It only works under special circumstances,
e.g. the command line must have a special kind of format and the cursor must be at a
specific position.

It prints out the following error message:
	any_command bash: $index: substring expression < 0
when trying to complete on any command that looks like this egrep-like regex(the bug
only occurs with whitespace and control characters used exactly as specified):
	 any_command (other_option)*[ ]+ last_option\n
	                  cursor is here^           ^
	line end is here(no space after last_option)|

here is an example that triggers the error. Type in the following into bash
> ls  -l
then put the cursor before the minus sign
> ls  -l
     ^cursor is here
than press <TAB> to complete. This is what you should get:
> ls bash: $index: substring expression < 0

I guess the bug is somewhere in __get_cword_at_cursor_by_ref or _get_cword, but I
wasn't able to fix it

It occurs on multiple versions of bash-completion 20080705, 1.2-3 and others probably
too. It also occurs on different versions of bash as well, tested on 3.2.39(1)-release,
4.1-3 and 4.1.7(1)-release on Debian Lenny, Squeeze and even on other Linux distributions.

Since this e-mail is sensitive to whitespaces and e-mail often mangles them, I've put
up a copy here: http://paste.debian.net/115602/

Message #10 received at 624703@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: David Paleino <dapal@debian.org>

To: Frank Harwald <franki777@xmail.net>

Cc: 624703@bugs.debian.org, 622383@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [Bash-completion-devel] Bug#624703: bash-completion makes bash report an error and doesn't complete

Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 21:30:33 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

forcemerge 622383 624703
thanks

Hello,

On Sat, 30 Apr 2011 11:50:26 -0700, Frank Harwald wrote:

> Package: bash-completion
> Version: 1.2-3
> 
> There is a bug in bash-completion that makes it print out an error message
> when trying to complete any command by hitting <TAB> when bash_completion is
> loaded and the current command doesn't get any completion at all. It only
> works under special circumstances, e.g. the command line must have a special
> kind of format and the cursor must be at a specific position.
> 
> It prints out the following error message:
> 	any_command bash: $index: substring expression < 0
> [..]

Seems like a duplicate of #622383. Would you please test the patch linked there?

Kindly,
David

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