CmdAutoComp

CmdAutoComp is a tool for simplifying the implementation of auto-completion of commands. You can watch the demo video first to check if it meets your needs. It relies on the complete command on the Linux shell and a command tree file (with the suffix .comp) designed by me. After installing this tool, when you want to auto-complete a command, you just need to make a .comp file like example.

Usage

You can refer to example to try it out.

1. Append the contents of the bashrc to the .bashrc in your home directory. And replace path/to/shell-cmd-comp.sh with the path where you put shell-cmd-comp.sh.
2. Run source ~/.bashrc. This will create a directory named .shellCmdComp.d and export a environment variable SHELL_CMD_COMP_DIR.
3. In this step, you can create a file with the .comp suffix and put it in the ~/shellCmdComp.d directory. This file is the key to auto-complete commands. Refer to .comp File to get the details.
4. Run complete -F _shell_cmd_complete <cmd-name>.
5. Test your command.

comp File

Sub-commands are organized into a tree in the .comp file. The coding rules for the .comp file and the tree are as follows.

• The file name before the suffix must be the same as your main command.
• The first line is reserved. You can write anything or nothing on this line.
• Subsequent lines are used to enumerate sub-commands. These sub-commands are organized in a tree. Each child command is indented one tab back from the parent command.
• The first-level sub-command should be indented one tab from the beginning of the line
• Each level of command nodes should start with a dedicated line that determines how to handle the command nodes at the current level. Only the following symbols can be used for dedicated lines.
  • & All sub-commands of the current level can be used together.
  • @ Only one sub-command of the current level can be used.
  • * Current sub-command supports any input parameter.

Example

There is a command test which supports the following sub-commands.

• --option1 param11
• --option1 param12
• --option1 param12 <anything>
• --option1 param13 param131
• --option1 param13 param132
• --option2 param21
• --option2 param22
• --option3 param31
• --option3 param32
• --option1, --option2 and --option3 can be used together.
• param11, param12 and param13 under --option1 can be used together.
• param21 and param22 under --option2 can be used together.

Then the name of the .comp file must be test.comp. The contents of this file are as follows.

Anything
	&
	--option1
		&
		param11
		param12
			*
		param13
			@
			param131
			param132
	--option2
		&
		param21
		param22
	--option3
		@
		param31
		param32

The command log is shown below.

source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ ls
1  bashrc  LICENSE  README.md  shell-cmd-comp.sh  test  test.comp
source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ pwd
/home/source/opensource/mine/cmdAutoComp
source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ vim ~/.bashrc
source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ tail -1 ~/.bashrc
source /home/source/opensource/mine/cmdAutoComp/shell-cmd-comp.sh
source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ source ~/.bashrc
source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ ls ~/.shellCmdComp.d
source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ vim ~/.shellCmdComp.d/test.comp
source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ ls ~/.shellCmdComp.d
test.comp
source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ cat ~/.shellCmdComp.d/test.comp
Anything
	*
	--option1
		*
		param11
		param12
		param13
			@
			param131
			param132
	--option2
		*
		param21
		param22
	--option3
		@
		param31
		param3

source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ cat test
#!/bin/bash
source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ chmod +x test
source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ complete -F _shell_cmd_complete ./test
source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ test
1                  .git/              README.md          test
bashrc             LICENSE            shell-cmd-comp.sh
source@debian:cmdAutoComp$ ./test --option
--option1  --option2  --option3

Demo Video

cmdAutpComp.mp4