bash-completion is a collection of command line command completions for the Bash shell, collection of helper functions to assist in creating new completions, and set of facilities for loading completions automatically on demand, as well as installing them.
The easiest way to install this software is to use a package; refer to Repology for a comprehensive list of operating system distributions, package names, and available versions.
Depending on the package, you may still
need to source it from either /etc/bashrc or ~/.bashrc (or any
other file sourcing those). If you have only bash >= 4.2 installed, you can
do this by simply using:
# Use bash-completion, if available
[[ $PS1 && -f /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion ]] && \
. /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completionIf you have older bash versions in use, their loading of bash_completion
should be prevented. See further for more info.
If you don't have the package readily available for your distribution, or you simply don't want to use one, you can install bash completion using the standard commands for GNU autotools packages:
autoreconf -i # if not installing from prepared release tarball
./configure
make # GNU make required
make check # optional
make install # as root
make installcheck # optional, requires python3 with pytest >= 3.6, pexpectThese commands install the completions and helpers, as well as a
profile.d script that loads bash_completion where appropriate.
If your system does not use the profile.d directory (usually below
/etc) mechanism (i.e., does not automatically source shell scripts in
it), you can source the $sysconfdir/profile.d/bash_completion.sh
script in /etc/bashrc or ~/.bashrc.
The profile.d script provides a configuration file hook that can be
used to prevent loading bash_completion on per user basis when it's
installed system wide. To do this:
- Turn off programmable completion with
shopt -u progcompin$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bash_completion(or~/.config/bash_completionif$XDG_CONFIG_HOMEis not set) - Turn it back on (for example in
~/.bashrc) if you want to use programmable completion for other purposes.
If you're using macOS (formerly OS X), /etc/bashrc is apparently not sourced at
all. In that case, you can put the bash_completion file in /sw/etc
and add the following code to ~/.bash_profile:
if [ -f /sw/etc/bash_completion ]; then
. /sw/etc/bash_completion
fiIf you find that a given function is producing errors or does not work
as it should under certain circumstances when you attempt completion,
try running set -x or set -v prior to attempting the completion
again. This will produce useful debugging output that will aid us in
fixing the problem if you are unable to do so yourself. Turn off the
trace output by running either set +x or set +v.
If you are filing an issue, please attach the generated debugging output
in set -x mode copy-pasted to a separate, attached file in the report.
Before doing so, be sure to review the output for anything you may not want
to share in public, and redact as appropriate.
To debug dynamic loading of a completion, tracing needs to be turned on before the debugged completion is attempted the first time. The easiest way to do this is to start a new shell session, and to turn tracing on in it before doing anything else there.
- Many of the completion functions assume GNU versions of the various
text utilities that they call (e.g.
grep,sed, andawk). Your mileage may vary.
Q. The bash completion code inhibits some commands from completing on files with extensions that are legitimate in my environment. Do I have to disable completion for that command in order to complete on the files that I need to?
A. No. If needed just once in a while,
use M-/ to (in the words of the bash man page) attempt file
name completion on the text to the left of the cursor. This will
circumvent any file type restrictions put in place by the bash
completion code. If needed more regularly, see the next question:
Q. How can I override a completion shipped by bash-completion?
A. Install a local completion of your own appropriately for the desired
command, and it will take precedence over the one shipped by us. See the
next answer for details where to install it, if you are doing it on per user
basis. If you want to do it system wide, you can install eagerly loaded
files in compatdir (see a couple of questions further down for more
info. To get the path of compatdir for the current system, the output of
pkg-config bash-completion --variable compatdir can be used) and install a
completion for the commands to override our completion for in them.
If you want to use bash's default completion instead of one of ours,
something like this should work (where $cmd is the command to override
completion for): complete -o default -o bashdefault $cmd
Q. Where should I install my own local completions?
A. Put them in the completions subdir of $BASH_COMPLETION_USER_DIR
(defaults to $XDG_DATA_HOME/bash-completion or
~/.local/share/bash-completion
if $XDG_DATA_HOME is not set) to have them loaded automatically
on demand when the respective command is being completed.
See also the next question's answer for considerations for these
files' names, they apply here as well. Alternatively, you can write
them directly in ~/.bash_completion which is loaded eagerly by
our main script.
Q. I author/maintain package X and would like to maintain my own completion code for this package. Where should I put it to be sure that interactive bash shells will find it and source it?
A. [ Disclaimer: Here, how to make the completion code visible to bash-completion is explained. We do not require always making the completion code visible to bash-completion. In what condition the completion code is installed should be determined at the author/maintainers' own discretion. ]
Install it in one of the directories pointed to by bash-completion's
pkgconfig file variables. There are two alternatives:
- The recommended directory is
completionsdir, which you can get withpkg-config --variable=completionsdir bash-completion. From this directory, completions are automatically loaded on demand based on invoked commands' names, so be sure to name your completion file accordingly, and to include (for example) symbolic links in case the file provides completions for more than one command. The completion filename for commandfooin this directory should be eitherfoo, orfoo.bash. (Underscore prefixed_fooworks too, but is reserved for bash-completion internal use as a deprecation/fallback marker.) - The other directory which is only present for backwards compatibility,
its usage is no longer recommended, is
compatdir(get it withpkg-config --variable=compatdir bash-completion). From this directory, files are loaded eagerly whenbash_completionis loaded.
For packages using GNU autotools the installation can be handled
for example like this in configure.ac:
PKG_CHECK_VAR(bashcompdir, [bash-completion], [completionsdir], ,
bashcompdir="${sysconfdir}/bash_completion.d")
AC_SUBST(bashcompdir)...accompanied by this in Makefile.am:
bashcompdir = @bashcompdir@
dist_bashcomp_DATA = your-completion-file # completion files go hereFor cmake we ship the bash-completion-config.cmake and
bash-completion-config-version.cmake files. Example usage:
find_package(bash-completion)
if(BASH_COMPLETION_FOUND)
message(STATUS
"Using bash completion dir ${BASH_COMPLETION_COMPLETIONSDIR}")
else()
set (BASH_COMPLETION_COMPLETIONSDIR "/etc/bash_completion.d")
message (STATUS
"Using fallback bash completion dir ${BASH_COMPLETION_COMPLETIONSDIR}")
endif()
install(FILES your-completion-file DESTINATION
${BASH_COMPLETION_COMPLETIONSDIR})In bash-completion >= 2.12, we search the data directory of
bash-completion under the installation prefix where the target command is
installed. When one can assume that the version of the target
bash-completion is 2.12 or higher, the completion script can actually be
installed to $PREFIX/share/bash-completion/completions/ under the same
installation prefix as the target program installed under $PREFIX/bin/ or
$PREFIX/sbin/. For the detailed search order, see also "Q. What is the
search order for the completion file of each target command?" below.
Example for Makefile.am:
bashcompdir = $(datarootdir)/bash-completion/completions
dist_bashcomp_DATA = your-completion-fileExample for CMakeLists.txt:
install(FILES your-completion-file DESTINATION "${CMAKE_INSTALL_DATAROOTDIR}/bash-completion/completions")Q. When completing on a symlink to a directory, bash does not append
the trailing / and I have to hit <Tab> again.
I don't like this.
A. This has nothing to do with bash_completion. It's the default for
completing symlinks to directories since bash 2.05a, and was added
because sometimes you want to operate on the symlink itself, rather
than what it points to.
You can get the pre-2.05a behaviour back by putting set mark-symlinked-directories on in your /etc/inputrc or
~/.inputrc file.
Q. Completion goes awry when I try to complete on something that contains a colon.
A. This is actually a 'feature' of bash. bash recognises a colon as
starting a new completion token, which is often what you want when
completing something like a PATH variable:
export PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr<Tab>Without the special treatment of the colon, the above wouldn't work without programmable completion, so it has long been a feature of the shell.
Unfortunately, you don't want the colon to be treated as a special case when doing something like:
man File::B<Tab>Here, the colons make bash think that it's completing a new token that begins with 'B'.
Unfortunately, there's no way to turn this off. The only thing you can do is escape the colons with a backslash.
Q. Why is rpm completion so slow with -q?
A. Probably because the database is being queried every time and this uses a lot of memory.
You can make this faster by pregenerating the list of installed
packages on the system. Make sure you have a readable file called
/var/log/rpmpkgs. It's generated by /etc/cron.daily/rpm on
some Red Hat and Mandrake and derivative Linux systems.
If you don't have such a cron job, make one:
#!/bin/sh
rpm -qa --qf '%{name}-%{version}-%{release}.%{arch}.rpm\n' 2>&1 \
| sort >/var/log/rpmpkgsrpm completion will use this flat text file instead of the RPM database, unless it detects that the database has changed since the file was created, in which case it will still use the database to ensure accuracy.
Q. bash-completion interferes with my command_not_found_handle function
(or the other way around)!
A. If your command_not_found_handle function is not intended to
address (possibly missing) commands invoked during bash
programmable completion functions, you can account for this
in the function by, for example, testing if the $COMP_LINE
variable is set and taking appropriate action, typically returning
early and silently with success.
Q. Can tab completion be made even easier?
A. The readline(3) library offers a few settings that can make tab
completion easier (or at least different) to use.
For example, try putting the following in either /etc/inputrc or
~/.inputrc:
set show-all-if-ambiguous onThis will allow single tab completion as opposed to requiring a double tab. This makes things much more pleasant, in our opinion.
set visible-stats onThis will suffix each returned file completion with a character
denoting its type, in a similar way to ls(1) with -F or --classify.
set page-completions offThis turns off the use of the internal pager when returning long completion lists.
Q. Is bash the be-all-and-end-all of completion as far as shells go?
A. Absolutely not. zsh has an extremely sophisticated completion system that offers many features absent from the bash implementation. Its users often cannot resist pointing this out. More information can be found at https://www.zsh.org/.
Q. What is the search order for the completion file of each target command?
A. The completion files of commands are looked up by the shell function
__load_completion. Here, the search order in bash-completion >= 2.12 is
explained.
BASH_COMPLETION_USER_DIR. The subdirectorycompletionsof each paths inBASH_COMPLETION_USER_DIRseparated by colons is considered for a completion directory.- The location of the main
bash_completionfile. The subdirectorycompletionsin the same directory asbash_completionis considered. - The location of the target command. When the real location of the command
is in the directory
<prefix>/binor<prefix>/sbin, the directory<prefix>/share/bash-completion/completionsis considered. XDG_DATA_DIRS(or the system directories/usr/local/share:/usr/shareif empty). The subdirectorybash-completion/completionsof each paths inXDG_DATA_DIRSseparated by colons is considered.
The completion files of the name <cmd> or <cmd>.bash, where <cmd> is
the name of the target command, are searched in the above completion
directories in order. The file that is found first is used. When no
completion file is found in any completion directories in this process, the
completion files of the name _<cmd> is next searched in the completion
directories in order.