Re: Why escape char `:' with `\' when auto completing filenames?

[Pierre Gaston]

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 12:17 PM, Clark J. Wang <dearvoid@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 5:38 PM, Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org
> >wrote:
>
> > Maarten Billemont <lhunath@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > > Why are we escaping all word break characters? rm file:name and rm
> > file\:name are effectively identical, I'm not sure I see the need for
> > escaping it.
> >
> > How do you differentiate between completing file:name and completing
> > file:name?
> >
> >
> I don't understand what did you mean. :(


If you complete PATH, you want to be able to press tab after:
PATH=/bin:/home/clark/ so that it completes "/home/clark"
If you complete a file named 'foo:bar' you want to be able to press tab
after: ls foo:b so that it completes just "foo:b"
So  how bash can decide if if it should complete just "b" like in the
example of PATH or "foo:b"?