error message when no completions and failglob is on

I couldn't confirm this on my Gutsy installation.

I used the same steps that adw used, but hitting <TAB> after

tar tf<SPACE><TAB>

autocompleted a "t" and hitting <TAB> again gave me tgz and test.tar as the completion options.

So I typed

mkdir test
cd test
touch test.tar
touch tgz
tar tf<SPACE><TAB>

and I got expected behavior.

However, if I omitted the <SPACE> after tf, I got nothing, so

mkdir test
cd test
touch test.tar
touch tgz
tar tf<TAB>

Results in nothing.

Can anyone else confirm this?

I was also unable to confirm the original reports steps. I am able to confirm Jim J's reply.

tar tf<TAB>

does not offer any items, however:

tar tf<SPACE><TAB> does offer items for completion as expected.

Jim, chills42,

It shouldn't complete to tgz at all, so I think you don't have programmable complete enabled.
Try running this line before testing:
. /etc/bash_completion

And it shouldn't complete without the space, I think. It would be expecting more options instead of a filename.

I can confirm the initial author's report... Typing tar tf<SPACE><TAB> does not offer me any items. The same is true for any other combination of letters ending in an 'f' (i.e. tar ft<SPACE><TAB> works, tar xf<SPACE><TAB>) does not. Deleting the file 'tgz' also solves the issue, i.e. the problem does not occur with only the test.tar file present.

I can confirm now. After sourcing the /etc/bash_completion file (.
/etc/bash_completion), I get the same behavior as was originally reported by
adw.

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 3:51 PM, adw <email address hidden> wrote:

> Jim, chills42,
>
> It shouldn't complete to tgz at all, so I think you don't have
> programmable complete enabled.
> Try running this line before testing:
> . /etc/bash_completion
>
> And it shouldn't complete without the space, I think. It would be
> expecting more options instead of a filename.
>
> --
> improper quoting in bash completion script
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/194419
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

This trivial patch for /etc/bash_completion fixes the tar issue:
2888c2888
< _filedir $ext
---
> _filedir "$ext"

However, I think I had another (similar) problem with failglob and autocomplete for rm, but I cannot seem to reproduce that now.

Fixing the quoting as in the patch above, fixes the initial issue (tar autocompletion) for me.

Ok, I managed to reproduce the rm problem. In fact, this seems to affect all file autocompletes:

mkdir test
cd test
touch [a]
touch a
ls <TAB>

Should: do nothing, list both files as completion options on a second <TAB>
Instead: autocompletes to a

(Again, it breaks autocomplete with failglob even without the a file.)

The problem is caused by the _filedir() function in /etc/bash_completion. There are a couple of lines which temporarily disable globbing, but they are commented out. Uncommenting them fixes the issue for me, and seems to have no ill effects, but I'm sure someone commented them out for a reason...

This is a bug in the bash-completion package.

I've prepared an updated package in my PPA which should fix the bug you reported.

If you're using hardy I'd appreciate it if you could test it and report whether your bug is indeed fixed and also whether you experienced any other regressions.

You can get the package from here:
http://launchpadlibrarian.net/13042048/bash-completion_20060301-3ubuntu2%7Eppa2_all.deb

To install it:
wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/13042048/bash-completion_20060301-3ubuntu2%7Eppa2_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i dpkg -i bash-completion_20060301-3ubuntu2~ppa2_all.deb

To go back to the original package, do this:
sudo aptitude install bash-completion/hardy

If I don't get reports of regressions I'll try to get this version into hardy.

Thanks for your help!

I'm not using hardy yet, so I can't test (sorry), but I did just find another similar bug:

mkdir test
cd test
touch [a].zip
touch a.zip
unzip <TAB>

Patch attached.

Thanks, I've fixed this problem too. I've not used your patch but fixed it in a similar way that I fixed the original problem which should cover some additional corner cases. It'll also be in the next upload.

This bug was fixed in the package bash-completion - 20060301-3ubuntu2

---------------
bash-completion (20060301-3ubuntu2) hardy; urgency=low

  * Bugfix release:
   - Fix _get_cword more
   - Fix _command function to correctly prune the command line (LP: #103395)
   - Remove newline from options pattern for dpkg (LP: #138312)
   - Start readline-quoting arguments to compgen (LP: #123665)
   - Save and restore -v shell option (LP: #205444)
   - Prevent glob expansion in _filedir function (LP: #194419)
   - Quote glob expression in tar completion function (LP: #194419)
   - Complete AAS/SSA files for mplayer -sub (LP: #151086)
   - Disable completion of postgresql users and databases (LP: #164772)
   - Use files from UserKnownHostsFile options in addition to standard ones
     (LP: #211180)

 -- Mika Fischer <email address hidden> Sat, 05 Apr 2008 16:09:34 +0200

Ah, crap. Just moved to hardy, and it's still broken.

shopt -s failglob
mkdir test
cd test
unzip <TAB>

Never mind, somehow extglob had gotten unset! (A changed default?)

...Although even with extglob, this still seems to fail:

shopt -s failglob
mkdir test
cd test
vim <TAB>

Ah, sorry, I did not get that part of the bug.

It's an easy fix, but I'm afraid it's too late for hardy...

If you want, you can apply the attached one-line patch.

Thanks, that fixed it.

I'm afraid we're not quite done yet ;)

shopt -s failglob
sudo <TAB>

Also,

shopt -s failglob
ls *<TAB>

Sigh, more quoting errors... :)

Patch attached.

Completion for 'man' gives directories instead of manpages with failglob.

And here's a patch.

thanks mika / adw - i've been fighting this for a while. in 7.10 i got around it by selectively enabling completion, but this is a whole lot nicer. but then 8.04 broke my work-around. once i narrowed it down to the failglob shopt i found your page. i just applied the patches and things are working much nicer.

for the sake of anyone googling, i was seeing:

i would type: sudo apt-get <TAB>
and i'd see: sudo apt-get bash: no match: COMP_WORDS[2-1]

the patches above fix it for me.

is there an easy way to "force" a completion, eg so that i could run it with a -x option or with bashdb ? i'm sure i'll find a few more of these problems :)

seems to ignore expand-tilde

lytles@bryan| bind -V | grep tilde
expand-tilde is set to `off'

typing: ls ~/<TAB>
------> ls /home/lytles

if i don't source the patched /etc/bash_completion, bash leaves the ~ alone.

looks like the problem is in the function _expand(), but i haven't found a workaround yet

ok - have a patch for the tilde expansion

it doesn't honor readlines expand-tilde, it just forces things to stay in tilde notation. might get a refinement later, but it's friday evening :)

completion for cvs seems broken :

> complete | grep cvs
complete -o default -F _cvs cvs

> ls src/
com CVS hpctest2

> cvs diff src<TAB>
    --> cvs diff src<space> instead of the possible completions

at first glance this one looks beyond me.

another: trying to prefix a grep with a find

grep -r "stuff.*stuff"

then add at the beginning "find comp" and hitting tab

find com<tab>grep -r "stuff.*stuff"

this kills the current line (and it doesn't even go to history, so potentially you could lose a significant amount of work if you'd been building up a big line)

here's what you see after tab:
>find combash: no match: "stuff.*stuff"
>

this should complete correctly (i understand it's a corner), but at worst it should do nothing (and never kill without history the entire line).

here's my shopt -p:

shopt -u cdable_vars
shopt -u cdspell
shopt -u checkhash
shopt -s checkwinsize
shopt -s cmdhist
shopt -u compat31
shopt -u dotglob
shopt -u execfail
shopt -s expand_aliases
shopt -u extdebug
shopt -s extglob
shopt -s extquote
shopt -s failglob
shopt -s force_fignore
shopt -u gnu_errfmt
shopt -u histappend
shopt -u histreedit
shopt -u histverify
shopt -u hostcomplete
shopt -u huponexit
shopt -s interactive_comments
shopt -u lithist
shopt -u login_shell
shopt -u mailwarn
shopt -u no_empty_cmd_completion
shopt -u nocaseglob
shopt -u nocasematch
shopt -s nullglob
shopt -s progcomp
shopt -s promptvars
shopt -u restricted_shell
shopt -u shift_verbose
shopt -u sourcepath
shopt -u xpg_echo

Since Mika seems to be gone for a bit, meanwhile you can work around the bugs by putting this at the start of the broken functions:
local glob=`shopt -p failglob`; shopt -u failglob
And this before every return and at the end:
eval $glob

(Maybe you've done something similar already. :)

jc - this is still fubar in hardy

bash-completion version 20080705 has been merged from Debian for Jaunty and fixes many many bugs. Since the original issue the reporter mentioned is fixed (and as far as I can see, some other ones mentioned in the comments, too), I am closing this bug. Please summarize which wrong completions stated in this bug report are still there and open a new bug for them. Thanks in advance.