path completion with cd <tab> - similar to tcsh

[Peter Toft]

Hi all

I have been using tcsh for a long time on Red Hat Linux boxes, and
bash on other UNIX-boxes. One thing I really love with tcsh is the way
I can swiftly operate using the <TAB> to do auto-complete, when having
a deep directory hierarchy. I have that...

With bash I surely could use your skills to improve my usage of bash
(read; allow me to ditch tcsh fully).

I have an annoying bash-problem on Red Hat Linux 5.x. If I e.g. try to 
move
to a subdirectory of another directory (e.g. $HOME), where the 
tab-expand
works poorly;

Assume $HOME=/home/pto

"cd $HOME<TAB>" is expanded to "cd /home/pto " (without the quotes).
I get $HOME expanded - quite ok - but I get an annoying space efter the 
path.
I will never like that space, I strongly prefer if I could get
"cd $HOME<TAB>" expanded to "cd /home/pto/" (without the quotes) so I 
could
continue to press <TAB> and see the allowed sub-directories - much 
faster for me.

I have also understood I can do
$ complete -o nospace  cd
to change the mode of operation, but this seems to disable the 
auto-complete
function when doing cd $VARIABLE<TAB>.

I am guestimating, that you have discussed this in February
(cf. http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/gentoo/user/227574)
but the February archive seems to be lost;
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2011-02/msg00274.html
so I cannot get the details of it.

That cited link is suggesting; "ESC ctrl-e gets rid of the
backslash, and if you want to keep the $VAR as $VAR, backspace over
the terminal space and continue. Or you can ESC ctrl-e again, and
convert the $VAR to its value, so you won't need to repeat the single
ESC ctrl-e for each further <tab>."
which IMHO is not really what I want.

Any hints on this? Can I set the mode of operation as I like where the
infamous space is replaced by a slash when doing "cd ... <TAB>"?

Best

--
Peter Toft, PhD
http://petertoft.dk