Re: Expand first before asking the question "Display all xxx possibilities?"

[Ilkka Virta]

On 5.8. 22:21, Chris Elvidge wrote:
> On 05/08/2020 02:55 pm, Chet Ramey wrote:
> > On 8/2/20 6:55 PM, 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson wrote:
> > > how about doing the expansion first, so entering
> > > $ zz /jidanni_backups/da<TAB> would then change into
>  >> $ zz /jidanni_backups/dan_home_bkp with below it the question
>  >> Display all 113 possibilities? (y or n)
>
> What happens if you have:
> dan_home-bkp, dan_home_nobkp, dan-home-bkp, dan-nohome-bkp, 
> dan_nohome-bkp (etc.) in /jidanni_backups/?
> Which do you choose for the first expansion?

I think they meant the case where all the files matching the given 
beginning have a longer prefix in common. The shell expands that prefix 
to the command line after asking to show all possibilities.

 $ rm *
 $ touch dan_home_bkp{1..199}
 $ ls -l da[TAB]
 Display all 199 possibilities? (y or n) [n]
 $ ls -l dan_home_bkp[cursor here]

So the shell has to fill in the common part anyway, and it might as well 
do it first, without asking.

(Which just so happens to be what Zsh does...)


--
Ilkka Virta / itvirta@iki.fi