Well completion-ignore-case is enough to solve this particular problem, the other options are just sugar on top :)
I’m going to add completion-prefix-display-length to these related bonus tips (I have it set to 9). This makes it a lot easier to compare files with long names in your tab completion.
For example if you have a folder with these files:
GNU Readline (which is what Bash uses for input) has a lot of options (e.g. making it behave like vim), and your settings are also used in any other programs that use it for their CLI which is a nice bonus. The config file is ~/.inputrc and you’d enable the above mentioned options like this
$include /etc/inputrc
set completion-ignore-caseonset show-all-if-ambiguous onset completion-map-caseonset completion-prefix-display-length 9
There’s probably some way to add it in bash, but if you install zsh and use the default options for everything, it just works!
I especially love zsh for things “just work”: not just tab completion for directories but also having completion for tools like git, docker, kubectl, etc is super easy, and you don’t need any weird magic like in Bash if you want to use an alias with the same completion
I tend to always install both of them together too! Which makes it a little hard to know where things are coming from. This time I decided to start from scratch, so certain aspects of the config are still salient in my mind
I’ve seen a number of comments imply the possibility of case insensitive tab completion. Is this real and how do I do it?
I have multiple times fumbled with forgetting to capitalize something, only for the terminal to ‘dunk’ at me
For bash, this is enough:
# Bash TAB-completition enhancements # Case-insensitive bind "set completion-ignore-case on" # Treat - and _ as equivalent in tab-compl bind "set completion-map-case on" # Expand options on the _first_ TAB press. bind "set show-all-if-ambiguous on"If you also add e.g.
CDPATH=~/Documents, it will also always autocomplete from your Documents no matter which directory you’re on.Setting
CDPATH=:~/Documents/Devmakes navigating to any of my projects so much easier.Thanks for bringing it to my attention
Thanks kind stranger. Never knew of this.
Well
completion-ignore-caseis enough to solve this particular problem, the other options are just sugar on top :)I’m going to add
completion-prefix-display-lengthto these related bonus tips (I have it set to 9). This makes it a lot easier to compare files with long names in your tab completion.For example if you have a folder with these files:
FoobarSystem-v20.69.11-CrashLog2022-12-22 FoobarSystem-v20.69.11.config FoobarSystem-v20.69.12 FoobarSystem-v20.69.12-CrashLog2023-10-02 FoobarSystem-v20.69.12.config FoobarSystem-v20.69.12.userprofilesJust type
vim TABto see...1-CrashLog2022-12-22 ...1.config ...2 ...2-CrashLog2023-10-02 ...2.config ...2.userprofiles $vim FoobarSystem-v20.69.1GNU Readline (which is what Bash uses for input) has a lot of options (e.g. making it behave like vim), and your settings are also used in any other programs that use it for their CLI which is a nice bonus. The config file is
~/.inputrcand you’d enable the above mentioned options like this$include /etc/inputrc set completion-ignore-case on set show-all-if-ambiguous on set completion-map-case on set completion-prefix-display-length 9There’s probably some way to add it in bash, but if you install zsh and use the default options for everything, it just works! I especially love zsh for things “just work”: not just tab completion for directories but also having completion for tools like git, docker, kubectl, etc is super easy, and you don’t need any weird magic like in Bash if you want to use an alias with the same completion
Hmm, it didn’t “just work” for me. I had to set it up recently:
zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}' 'r:|=*' 'l:|=* r:|=*'That line needs to go in .zshrc. Maybe it’s enabled by default with oh-my-zsh?
I’m sorry, that must be it, I immediately installed oh-my-zsh after switching to zsh
I tend to always install both of them together too! Which makes it a little hard to know where things are coming from. This time I decided to start from scratch, so certain aspects of the config are still salient in my mind