There are two ways of using shtab
:
- CLI Usage:
shtab
's own CLI interface for external applications- may not require any code modifications whatsoever
- end-users execute
shtab your_cli_app.your_parser_object
- Library Usage: as a library integrated into your CLI application
- adds a couple of lines to your application
- argument mode: end-users execute
your_cli_app --print-completion {bash,zsh,tcsh}
- subparser mode: end-users execute
your_cli_app completion {bash,zsh,tcsh}
The only requirement is that external CLI applications provide an importable
argparse.ArgumentParser
object (or alternatively an importable function which
returns a parser object). This may require a trivial code change.
Once that's done, simply put the output of shtab --shell=your_shell your_cli_app.your_parser_object
somewhere your shell looks for completions.
Below are various examples of enabling shtab
's own tab completion scripts.
!!! info If both shtab and the module it's completing are globally importable, eager usage is an option. "Eager" means automatically updating completions each time a terminal is opened.
=== "bash"
```sh
shtab --shell=bash shtab.main.get_main_parser --error-unimportable \
| sudo tee "$BASH_COMPLETION_COMPAT_DIR"/shtab
```
=== "Eager bash"
There are a few options:
```sh
# Install locally
echo 'eval "$(shtab --shell=bash shtab.main.get_main_parser)"' \
>> ~/.bash_completion
# Install locally (lazy load for bash-completion>=2.8)
echo 'eval "$(shtab --shell=bash shtab.main.get_main_parser)"' \
> "${BASH_COMPLETION_USER_DIR:-${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}/bash-completion}/completions/shtab"
# Install system-wide
echo 'eval "$(shtab --shell=bash shtab.main.get_main_parser)"' \
| sudo tee "$(pkg-config --variable=completionsdir bash-completion)"/shtab
# Install system-wide (legacy)
echo 'eval "$(shtab --shell=bash shtab.main.get_main_parser)"' \
| sudo tee "$BASH_COMPLETION_COMPAT_DIR"/shtab
```
=== "zsh"
Note that `zsh` requires completion script files to be named `_{EXECUTABLE}`
(with an underscore prefix).
```sh
# note the underscore `_` prefix
shtab --shell=zsh shtab.main.get_main_parser --error-unimportable \
| sudo tee /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/_shtab
```
=== "Eager zsh"
To be more eager, place the generated script somewhere in `$fpath`. For
example, add these lines to the top of `~/.zshrc`:
```sh
mkdir -p ~/.zsh/completions
fpath=($fpath ~/.zsh/completions) # must be before `compinit` lines
shtab --shell=zsh shtab.main.get_main_parser > ~/.zsh/completions/_shtab
```
=== "tcsh"
```sh
shtab --shell=tcsh shtab.main.get_main_parser --error-unimportable \
| sudo tee /etc/profile.d/shtab.completion.csh
```
=== "Eager tcsh"
There are a few options:
```sh
# Install locally
echo 'shtab --shell=tcsh shtab.main.get_main_parser | source /dev/stdin' \
>> ~/.cshrc
# Install system-wide
echo 'shtab --shell=tcsh shtab.main.get_main_parser | source /dev/stdin' \
| sudo tee /etc/profile.d/eager-completion.csh
```
!!! tip See the examples/ folder for more.
Any existing argparse
-based scripts should be supported with minimal effort.
For example, starting with this existing code:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import argparse
def get_main_parser():
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog="MY_PROG", ...)
parser.add_argument(...)
parser.add_subparsers(...)
...
return parser
if __name__ == "__main__":
parser = get_main_parser()
args = parser.parse_args()
...
Assuming this code example is installed in MY_PROG.command.main
, simply run:
=== "bash"
```sh
shtab --shell=bash -u MY_PROG.command.main.get_main_parser \
| sudo tee "$BASH_COMPLETION_COMPAT_DIR"/MY_PROG
```
=== "zsh"
```sh
shtab --shell=zsh -u MY_PROG.command.main.get_main_parser \
| sudo tee /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/_MY_PROG
```
=== "tcsh"
```sh
shtab --shell=tcsh -u MY_PROG.command.main.get_main_parser \
| sudo tee /etc/profile.d/MY_PROG.completion.csh
```
!!! tip See the examples/ folder for more.
Complex projects with subparsers and custom completions for paths matching
certain patterns (e.g. --file=*.txt
) are fully supported (see
examples/customcomplete.py
or even
iterative/dvc:commands/completion.py
for example).
Add direct support to scripts for a little more configurability:
=== "argparse"
```{.py title="pathcomplete.py" linenums="1" hl_lines="7 9-10"}
#!/usr/bin/env python
import argparse
import shtab # for completion magic
def get_main_parser():
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog="pathcomplete")
shtab.add_argument_to(parser, ["-s", "--print-completion"]) # magic!
# file & directory tab complete
parser.add_argument("file", nargs="?").complete = shtab.FILE
parser.add_argument("--dir", default=".").complete = shtab.DIRECTORY
return parser
if __name__ == "__main__":
parser = get_main_parser()
args = parser.parse_args()
print("received <file>=%r --dir=%r" % (args.file, args.dir))
```
=== "docopt"
Simply use [argopt](https://pypi.org/project/argopt) to create a parser
object from [docopt](https://pypi.org/project/docopt) syntax:
```{.py title="docopt-greeter.py" linenums="1" hl_lines="17"}
#!/usr/bin/env python
"""Greetings and partings.
Usage:
greeter [options] [<you>] [<me>]
Options:
-g, --goodbye : Say "goodbye" (instead of "hello")
Arguments:
<you> : Your name [default: Anon]
<me> : My name [default: Casper]
"""
import argopt, shtab
parser = argopt.argopt(__doc__)
shtab.add_argument_to(parser, ["-s", "--print-completion"]) # magic!
if __name__ == "__main__":
args = parser.parse_args()
msg = "k thx bai!" if args.goodbye else "hai!"
print("{} says '{}' to {}".format(args.me, msg, args.you))
```