Re: How does one disable completion when nothing but tabs or spaces is on the line?

[Chet Ramey]

On 12/31/12 4:48 PM, Linda A. Walsh wrote:
> 
> If I have nothing but tabs or spaces on a line, how do I disable completion
> but have it return the char typed? (space or tab) -- and if bash is looking
> for a command, then execute any command.

If you don't want TAB to perform completion, you have two choices:

1.  Bind TAB to self-insert
2.  Disable completion with the `disable-completion' readline variable

If you want to insert a TAB without having it perform completion while
leaving it bound to `complete', you can:

1.  Bind some key sequence to `tab-insert' and use that (readline binds
    M-TAB to that, but bash overrides it)
2.  Use the key sequence bound to `quoted-insert' (^V by default) before
    typing TAB.

> NOTE: I tried binding a key like 'backquote' ("`") to the completion
> character,
> but it seems rebinding in readline doesn't work consistently.  Is that a bug?

Who can tell?  You don't provide any information that would allow anyone
to reproduce it.

-- 
``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/