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Discussion on: Turn any Bash function/alias into a hybrid executable/source-able script.

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thereedybear profile image
Reed •

I def like the idea of having a bash functions folder (DIRECTORY!! lol). Personally, i just append an export PATH to my ~/.bashrc. Mainly because i have a fairly specific directory structure for my open source projects & i like to keep that structure going & not everything in my dev/bash/PROJECT folders is necessarily setup to be executed.

I also have a personal library with a cli "framework" i made that i just add functions too, so its tlf [command group] [command].

I don't do any autocompletion though. Thats still something i have to try out. & i think my setup would require some changes to make that work. Didnt know it was so easy to do. But yeah, I'd have to source files to enable it to a greater degree than.

I have a script to start spacevim that would be a good candidate for your approach.

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thefluxapex profile image
Ian Pride •

Didnt know it was so easy to do.
-- Reed

You can do far more complicated Bash Completion with functions using COMP variables, compgen, and more:

Generic example:

 $ complete -F func_name command_name
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where the func_name is, of course, the name of the function where you do the more complicated stuff with COMP variables and return a COMPREPLY:

function func_name {
    # ... calculate COMP stuff and more ...
    COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -W "<DO_STUFF>") )
   # DO_STUFF: calculated stuff from above or compgen inline expression 
}
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But that's stuff you don't always need in a completion most of the time you can do with a simple word (-W) list:

 $ complete -W "-h --help -a --add" command_name
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or for some trickery:

tab toggling through a list of files only in a current directory:

 $ complete -W "$(find -maxdepth 1 -type f)" command_name
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or dirs only:

 $ complete -W "$(find -maxdepth 1 -type d)" command_name
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A lot can be done with this, including doing background stuff that may not be directly involved in your completion like logging file info, file stamps of latest files etc...

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thereedybear profile image
Reed •

Thanks, if I ever get around to putting in the time/effort to set it up, this'll be v. helpful. Long as I remember to come back here lol.

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