Re: $2 in complete function doesn't like ':' character

[Ives Aerts]

Chet Ramey wrote:
> Ives Aerts wrote:
> > Description:
> >         According to the documentation, the second arg ($2) passed to
> >         a completion function should contain the word being completed
> >         and the third arg ($3) the word preceding the word being
> >         completed.
> > 
> >         However, if the word being completed contains a ':' character,
> >         only the part after the ':' is passed as $2 to the completion
> >         function.
> > 
> > Repeat-By:
> >         > function _blah_complete() { echo -e "\n-$1-$2-$3-"; }
> >         > complete -F _blah_complete blah
> >         > blah arg1 arg2 arg3:and:more<TAB>
> >         -blah-more-arg2-
> > 
> >         Expected result:
> >         -blah-arg3:and:more-arg2-
> > 
> >         or even (if the ':' splits "arg3:and:more" in three words):
> >         -blah-more-and-
>
> `:' splits words for the completion code.  The intent was to be able to
> complete pathnames in colon-separated lists.  If you quote the colon
> with a backslash, you'll get the entire word (with backslashes intact)
> passed to your completion function.

But if that's the case, shouldn't the example given then return
"-blah-more-and-" ???

To give some background: I'm using ClearCase and trying to implement
completion for commands like "cleartool lstype trtype:TRIGGER_NAME"
and "cleartool lstype brtype:BRANCH_NAME". I'm trying to complete the
NAME after the colon, based on the type information given before the
colon.

I suppose I could look into COMP_CWORD a COMP_WORDS, but the man page
seemed to indicate that the information I need would be passed in $2
or $3.

Cheers,
-Ives
______________________________________________________________________
Ives Aerts (senior R&D engineer)           Sony Visual Products Europe
Ives.Aerts@sonycom.com                    http://www.nee-b.sonycom.com
`Repeat after me the ClearCase directory mantra: Directories do not
 contain elements; Elements do not have names.'           (Lezz Giles)