If I run a regular git command such as git checkout
I get helpful autocompletion of branch names when hitting the tab key.
I have a few git aliases which take branch names as parameters, and I’m wondering if there’s a way of getting the branch name autocompletion to work with them?
Edit:
Just to provide some clarification from the discussion in the comments, aliases with a direct mapping work fine, i.e.:
ci = commit co = checkout
It’s ones that are a bit more involved and use $1
as a parameter that don’t, for example:
tagarchive = !f() { git tag archive/$1 origin/$1 && git push origin :$1 && git push origin archive/$1 && git branch -d $1; }; f
Advertisement
Answer
For git aliases, the autocomplete function for the git command (__git()
) uses a call to git config --get "alias.$1"
to determine that equivalent autocomplete function. This works for simple mappings but will choke on more complex aliases.
To get around this, define an autocomplete function with a name that matches your alias, i.e. _git_tagarchive()
. The autocomplete function for git should pick that up and use it for autocompletion.
For example:
[me@home]$ git tagarchive <TAB><TAB> AUTHORS gentleSelect/ .gitignore LICENSE test_multiple.html cron/ .git/ index.html README.md [me@home]$ _git_tagarchive() { > _git_branch # reuse that of git branch > } [me@home]$ git tagarchive <TAB><TAB> enable_multiple master origin/gh-pages v0.1 v0.1.3 FETCH_HEAD ORIG_HEAD origin/HEAD v0.1.1 v0.1.3.1 HEAD origin/enable_multiple origin/master v0.1.2
For a more permanent solution simply add the function definition to your bashrc
file. Eg:
_git_tagarchive() { _git_branch }
Note that I’ve simply reused the autocomplete function for git branch
; you may wish to change this to something more suitable or write your own.
More info
This solution was identified based on an exploration of /etc/bash_completion.d/git
.
Typically, aliased git commands are handled by the __git_aliased_commands()
function which parses the output of git config --get "alias.$1"
to decide on the autocomplete function to use. Using a more complex shell command as the alias target would understandably foil this approach.
Looking further, it appears the autocomplete function for git (_git()
) chains in autocomplete function for subcommands by simple prepending the function with _git_
(with dashes (-
) in the command replaced by underscores). This is done before __git_aliased_command()
is checked so this is something we could use.
_git () { # ..... local completion_func="_git_${command//-/_}" declare -f $completion_func >/dev/null && $completion_func && return local expansion=$(__git_aliased_command "$command") if [ -n "$expansion" ]; then completion_func="_git_${expansion//-/_}" declare -f $completion_func >/dev/null && $completion_func fi }
The approach I’ve gone for is therefore to ensure that a function that matches your alias exists, i.e. _git_tagarchive()
.