Prevent cd tab completion from completing to a file

[allpan3]

From my observation, when I type cd <tab> to autocomplete, when there's any directory in the current directory, the completion menu will show only the directories. However, whenever when there' no further child directory, the tab completion will show all the files in the completion menu and attempts to autocomplete a filename. This makes it very easy to accidentally complete to a file path when I just try to cd into a directory, and I have backspace to the last directory level.

Meanwhile, I do find it useful to see the last-level files during cd. Is there a way to possibly just show the filenames in the completion menu, but not autocompletes the path all the way?

[akinomyoga]

Meanwhile, I do find it useful to see the last-level files during cd. Is there a way to possibly just show the filenames in the completion menu, but not autocompletes the path all the way?

If you just want to show the completion names and do not want to complete them, you may bind complete show_menu to C-i (TAB).

# blerc

# For emacs editing mode (default)
ble-bind -m emacs -f C-i 'complete show_menu'
ble-bind -m emacs -f TAB 'complete show_menu'

# For vi editing mode
ble-bind -m vi_imap -f C-i 'vi_imap/complete show_menu'
ble-bind -m vi_imap -f TAB 'vi_imap/complete show_menu'

However, with this setting, the completion doesn't happen at all, which may not be what you want.

---

If you want to disable the fallback completion of filenames, you need to modify the completion setting for cd. By default (without loading other frameworks that provide the cd completions such as fzf, zoxide, etc.), the cd completion is provided by the shell function ble/cmdinfo/complete:cd. To suppress the fallback completion, you may use the following setting:

# blerc

ble-import core-complete -C '
  ble/function#advice after ble/cmdinfo/complete:cd "ble/opts#remove comp_opts ble/default"'

Note: The above setting uses an internal interface, so it can possibly be broken in the future, though I currently don't have a plan to change it.

In this case, the filename list is not shown on attempting the completion for cd, but you may explicitly press C-x / to show the filename menu.

[allpan3]

Hmm somehow I couldn't get it to work with ble-import core-complete -C 'ble/function#advice after ble/cmdinfo/complete:cd "ble/opts#remove comp_opts ble/default"'.

I think the main problem is whenever I use tab to select from the completion menu, the selected item is automatically inserted even if I don't press enter. So when I press escape to cancel, the last-level file name is still inserted. Is there a way to either not automatically insert the selected item until enter or abort the completion without inserting?

[akinomyoga]

So when I press escape to cancel,

escape is not the key to cancel. To cancel the menu completion, please use C-g (see Manual §7.2). Then, the command line is reverted to the original state. If you press ESC, ble.sh leaves the menu-completion mode with the current state of the command line and tries to process ESC in the original keymap.

[allpan3]

aha I see. Thanks!

[akinomyoga]

and I have backspace to the last directory level.

You can actually undo the insertion by the completion by pressing C-x C-u or C-_ (in the emacs editing mode) or u (in the normal map of the vi editing mode).