Links shell completion files on install

[jbnicolai]

Includes shell-completion and will run, on postinstall, link bash completion/bash and `link zsh completion/zsh.

This will, if possible, link both the bash and zsh completion files to their expected locations.

Could use some feedback on the linking of zshell's completion, as I don't use that personally.

edit:

Removed zsh linking for now, best looked at someone actually using it.

[phated]

does https://github.com/jbnicolai/shell-completion/blob/master/bin/link#L1 work in zsh?

[jbnicolai]

@phated It does work when run in or from zsh, but still requires bash to be installed (as it is on nearly every system.

Let me however see if I can make the script posix shell compliant, so it just uses /bin/sh and doesn't require bash :)

[sindresorhus]

npm adds bins to the path, so you can just do:

link bash completion/bash

[sindresorhus]

@jbnicolai why isn't link just in node?

[jbnicolai]

Shell seemed easier when I started, thinking "it's just setting a symlink". Then it grew, of course.. ;-)

I'll close this PR for now and rewrite it in node tomorrow - as I agree that that would be better.
Thanks for the feedback, @sindresorhus and @phated

[sindresorhus]

@jbnicolai hah, always :)

Powershell support would also be nice.

[yocontra]

@tkellen liftoff?

[jbnicolai]

Reopened the pull request - rewrote shell-completion in node for cross-platform portability 😄

Powershell support should be trivial, but I'm completely unfamiliar with the platform and am unsure what the correct installation path would be. Some help on this would be greatly appreciated!

CC: @sindresorhus @phated

[jbnicolai]

@tkellen, @contra indeed! :)

[sindresorhus]

@staxmanade did the current PowerShell autocomplete.

[sindresorhus]

@jbnicolai, @contra meant that it would probably be a better fit in liftoff which is what gulp uses for the CLI stuff.

[jbnicolai]

Ah. mumbles something about miscommunication and the internet.. 😉

I think it does belong in gulp though, since the completion files themselves are part of gulp's repository as well. @tkellen might decide to bundle it with liftoff in the future, which he would be more than welcome to, in order for more CLI tools to use it - but I don't see how it's part of the same project per se.

[yocontra]

I think that bundling the autocompletion into liftoff would be a better fit though IMO, they all do the same thing - run a command which returns a list of things then make it work with zsh/powershell/sh so its really just boilerplate around a command that liftoff could take care of

[sindresorhus]

I tend to agree with @contra. If it's possible it would be better to have it in liftoff so anyone using it would get autocompletion for free.

[tkellen]

Agreed about adding this to Liftoff--I'm happy to consider the addition. Feel free to open a PR over there, @jbnicolai. I'll try to look at it this week. Thanks for putting this together!

[jbnicolai]

👍 I'm not very familiar with liftoff, but I'll try to put together a PR :)

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

[tkellen]

@jbnicolai any traction on getting a PR together for Liftoff?

[yocontra]

Any progress here? @jbnicolai @tkellen

[tkellen]

@jbnicolai Your module is a great start! I think it needs some work to be general cased in this fashion, though. Before I just write the module I'm looking for, would you be open to refactoring yours?

In my mind, the ideal case would be having your library export a pair of methods something like this:

// dynamically generate the content of a completion file
generateCompletion({
  command: 'gulp --simple-tasks',
  type: 'bash'
});

// write completion file
installCompletion({
  name: 'gulp',
  content: 'the output of generateCompletion',
  type: 'bash'
});

Once that is available, tools like gulp can expose your functionality via whatever command they like. For example, gulp --install-completions could defer to your library (or possibly some code in Liftoff) which handles the orchestration for consumers.

What do you think?

[jbnicolai]

@tkellen I'd very much be open to refactoring/improving the module! What I have now is nothing but a quick draft, and due to some personal issues I haven't had the time I wanted to work on these kinds of outstanding issues.

Your suggestion looks great though. Would you be interested in implementing this in the current module? I'd be happy to give you access, and share npmjs.org ownership.

[tkellen]

Hey @jbnicolai, I probably won't have time until January but if you want to add me to the repo, that'd be great!

[yocontra]

@tkellen @jbnicolai Just let me know when you have resolved this and what changes need to be put in gulp to accommodate the new feature in liftoff 👍