Ack Bash Completion

Experimental tab completion for ack, the CLI tool going beyond grep.

Usage

$ ack -<tab>
--actionscript
--ada
--after-context
--asm
--asp
--aspx
--bar
--batch
--bazel
--before-context
--break
--cathy
--cc
--cfmx
--clojure
--cmake
--coffeescript
--color
--color-colno
--color-filename
--color-lineno
--color-match
--column
--conf
--context
--count
--cpp
--csharp
--css
--dart
--delphi
--dump
--elisp
--elixir
--elm
--env
--erlang
--files-with-matches
--files-without-matches
--filter
--flush
--follow
--fortran
--go
--groovy
--group
--gsp
--haskell
--heading
--help
--help-colors
--help-rgb-colors
--help-types
--hh
--hpp
--html
--ignore-case
--ignore-dir
--ignore-directory
--ignore-file-r
--invert-match
--jade
--java
--js
--json
--jsp
--known-types
--kotlin
--less
--lisp
--literal
--lua
--make
--man
--markdown
--match
--matlab
--mojo
--no-filename
--no-ignore-case
--no-recurse
--nobreak
--nocolor
--nocolumn
--noenv
--nofilter
--nofollow
--nogroup
--noheading
--noignore-dir
--noignore-directory
--nopager
--nosmart-case
--nounderline
--objc
--objcpp
--ocaml
--output
--pager
--passthru
--pconf
--perl
--perltest
--php
--plone
--pod
--print0
--proximate
--purescript
--python
--rake
--range-end
--range-start
--recurse
--rr
--rst
--ruby
--rust
--sass
--scala
--scheme
--shell
--show-types
--smalltalk
--smart-case
--smarty
--sort-files
--sql
--stylus
--svg
--swift
--tcl
--tex
--thpppt
--toml
--ts
--ttml
--type
--underline
--vb
--verilog
--version
--vhdl
--vim
--with-filename
--word-regexp
--xml
--yaml
-1
-A
-B
-c
-C
-f
-g
-h
-H
-i
-I
-k
-l
-L
-n
-o
-p
-Q
-R
-s
-S
-t
-T
-v
-w
-x

It also supports definitions from your $HOME/.ackrc, so the above list might look different in your local environment.

The example ackrc based on my TIL

--type-set=mojo=.css,.pl,.pm,.html,.js,.tt,.ep,.conf
--type-set=conf=.conf
--type-set=conf=.pconf

Would work as follows, listing your custom types among ALL of the other options:

$ ack -<tab>
--mojo --conf --pconf

$ ack <tab>
.editorconfig                          CONTRIBUTING.md                        bash_completion_ack.code-workspace
.git/                                  LICENSE                                bash_completion_ack.sublime-project
.gitattributes                         README.md                              bash_completion_ack.sublime-workspace
.gitignore                             ack

List contents of directory as default for bash.

If you tab after your completion has been made the contents of the current directory is displayed:

$ ack --mojo <tab>
.editorconfig                          CONTRIBUTING.md                        bash_completion_ack.code-workspace
.git/                                  LICENSE                                bash_completion_ack.sublime-project
.gitattributes                         README.md                              bash_completion_ack.sublime-workspace
.gitignore                             ack

Download

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jonasbn/bash_completion_ack/master/ack > ack

Installation

When downloaded you have to install the completion implementation. Where your completions are located might vary.

Personal

If you want to install them for your personal use, do the following.

Create the file: ~/.bash_completion, containing the code below:

for bcfile in ~/.bash_completion.d/* ; do
  . $bcfile
done

Ref: ServerFault.com: Standard place for user defined bash_completion.d scripts?

Create a directory for your completions:

mkdir ~/.bash_completion.d

Copy your completions into the newly created directory:

cp ack ~/.bash_completion.d/

Start a new shell and you should be good to go.

System-wide example from Debian

Based on an introduction to bash completions on Debian.

sudo cp ack /etc/bash_completion.d/

System-wide example from OSX

This assumes you are using Homebrew

Do note that paths vary based on whether you are using bash 3 or 4

bash 3 (Formula: bash-completions)

cp ack /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/

And to activate right away:

source  /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/ack

bash 4 (Formula: bash-completions2)

cp ack /usr/local/share/bash-completion/completions/

And to activate right away:

source /usr/local/share/bash-completion/completions/ack

Motivation

The programmatic capabilities discovered while implementing my first bash completions intrigued me. This is a highly experimental feature, which nevertheless was lots of fun to implement.

History

• 2.2.1

  • Bug fix release, addressing issue introduced in 2.2.0, making the defaults not work

• 2.2.0

  • Major contribution from @rpgoldman expanding the capabilities of this tool extensively

• 2.1.0

  • Minor adjustment to behaviour, post completions, the contents of the current directory is listed

• 2.0.0

  • Initial version working with bash version 4.
  • Change to behaviour, - have to be entered for detected options to be listed

• 1.0.0

  • Initial version working with bash version 3.

See Also

A more elaborate piece of documentation on bash completions is available from The Linux Documentation Project in the Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide.

From the GNU Documentation.

Please note that this experimental implementation has only been tested with bash version 3 (see version 1.0.0).

Versions after version 1.0.0 have been tested with bash version 4.

The most comprehensive collection of bash completions I have come across is the one from the Debian Linux distribution. It is also the one offered for OSX via Homebrew.

License

This is made available under the MIT license, see separate license file.

Copyright

©️ jonasbn 2016-2022