Re: old-menu-complete behavior in bash v4 / readline v6

[Chet Ramey]

On 3/14/11 3:20 PM, Alan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I prefer the pre-readline-6.0 version of menu completion, so I tried
> using the "old-menu-complete" option in bash v4 / readline v6.
> 
> However, "old-menu-complete" doesn't behave exactly like
> "menu-complete" did in bash v3 / readline v5.
> 
> For example, in bash v3:
> 
> $ mkdir directory
> $ touch directory/{a,b,c,d,e}
> $ less directory/    [invoke "menu-complete" command]
> $ less directory/a  [invoke "menu-complete" command]
> $ less directory/b
> 
> In bash v4, using "old-menu-complete":
> 
> $ mkdir directory
> $ touch directory/{a,b,c,d,e}
> $ less directory/    [invoke "old-menu-complete" command]
> a b c d e
> $ less directory/a
> 
> In other words, in bash v3, "menu-complete" basically just cycles
> through the possible matches, WITHOUT displaying all the possible
> matches before the first cycle. However, in bash v4,
> "old-menu-complete" displays ALL possible matches before cycling
> through the matches on the command line.
> 
> Is there a way I can get "old-menu-complete" in bash v4 to match the
> behavior of "menu-complete" in bash v3 exactly in this regard?

Turn off `show-all-if-ambiguous'.  It was a bug in pre-readline6
versions that menu completion did not honor the setting of that
variable.

Chet

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/