In this small patch I want to introduce a way to dynamically load completion
scripts for external subcommands.
A few years ago, you would put a completion script (which defines a Bash
function _git_foo for a custom git subcommand foo) into
/etc/bash_completion.d, or save it somewhere in your $HOME and source it
manually in your .bashrc.
Starting with bash-completion v2.0 (or, to be absolutely exact, the preview
versions started at v1.90), completion scripts are not sourced at bash startup
anymore. Rather, when typing in a command and trigger completion by pressing
the TAB key, the new bash-completion's main script looks for a script with the
same name as the typed command in the completion directory, sources it, and
provides the completions defined in this script.
However, that only works for top level commands. After a completion script has
been found, the logic is delegated to this script. This means, that the
completion of subcommands must be handled by the corresponding completion
script.
As it is now, git is perfectly able to call custom completion functions, iff
they are already defined when calling the git completion. With my patch, git
uses an already defined loader function of bash-completion (or continues
silently if this function is not found), loads an external completion script,
and provides its completions.
An example for an external completion script would be
/usr/share/bash-completion/completions/git-foo for a git subcommand foo.
Changes since v2:
- Replaced __load_completion with _completion_loader, which was introduced
way before the former and should therefor be available even in older
distributions
- Updated commit message with explanations from Szeder Gábor
Changes since v1 (RFC):
- Re-arranged if-fi statement to increase readability (suggested by Junio C
Hamano)
- Re-worded commit message to include the exakt version of bashcomp that
introduced dynamic loading (suggested by Stefan Beller)
Florian Gamböck (1):
completion: load completion file for external subcommand
contrib/completion/git-completion.bash | 10 ++++++++++
1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)
--
2.16.1
