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In bash, it's easy enough to set up customized completion of command arguments using the complete built-in. For example, if, for a hypothetical command with a synopsis of foo --a | --b | --c, you could do complete -W '--a --b --c' foo

You can also customize the completion you get when you press Tab at an empty prompt using complete -E, e.g., complete -E -W 'foo bar'. Then pressing tab at the empty prompt would suggest only foo and bar.

How do I customize command completion at a non-empty prompt? E.g., if I'm sitting at:

anthony@Zia:~$ f

how do customize completion so pressing tab would always complete to foo?

(The actual case I'd like is locTAB → localc. And my brother, who prompted me to ask this, wants it with mplayer).

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2  
Have you considered simply aliasing loc to localc? I suggest alternatives because after quite some time digging and searching I have not found a way to customize bash completion this way. It may not be possible. –  jw013 Aug 5 '14 at 20:47
    
@jw013 Yeah, I looked for a while and couldn't find anything either. I'm half expecting someone to suggest switching to zsh, too. At least if zsh does it, I can rest comfortably knowing the next version of bash will as well. 😀 –  derobert Aug 5 '14 at 20:51
    
you have to press TAB twice and it will complete commands. –  Floyd Oct 10 '14 at 15:30
    
Won't that break all the other completions though? I mean, even if it is possible, you would no longer be able to get locate, locale, lockfile or any of the other expansions of loc. Perhaps a better approach would be to map a different key to that specific completion. –  terdon♦ Oct 28 '14 at 18:00
    
@terdon Well, that'd depend on the programmable completion I installed. But yeah, I might have to type lock<TAB> or loca<TAB> to avoid loc<TAB>->localc. But I'd actually like to make it context-sensitive, which is why programmable completion would be nice... –  derobert Oct 28 '14 at 19:43

3 Answers 3

up vote 0 down vote

Simple answer for you would be to 

$ cd into /etc/bash_completion.d
$ ls

just the basic outputs

autoconf       gpg2               ntpdate           shadow
automake       gzip               open-iscsi        smartctl
bash-builtins  iconv              openssl           sqlite3
bind-utils     iftop              perl              ssh
brctl          ifupdown           pkg-config        strace
bzip2          info               pm-utils          subscription-manager
chkconfig      ipmitool           postfix           tar
configure      iproute2           procps            tcpdump
coreutils      iptables           python            util-linux
cpio           lsof               quota-tools       wireless-tools
crontab        lvm                redefine_filedir  xmllint
cryptsetup     lzma               rfkill            xmlwf
dd             make               rpm               xz
dhclient       man                rsync             yum.bash
e2fsprogs      mdadm              scl.bash          yum-utils.bash
findutils      module-init-tools  service
getent         net-tools          sh

just add your desired program to auto complete to bash completion

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2  
Those files have shell script in them, some fairly complex if I remember correctly. Also, they only complete arguments once you've already typed the command... They don't complete the command. –  derobert Sep 25 '14 at 3:41
    
I understand what you mean. When you can take a look at this doc: debian-administration.org/article/316/… –  unixmiah Sep 25 '14 at 3:53
up vote -2 down vote

Run the below command to find where mplayer binary is installed:

which mplayer

OR use the path to the mplayer binary if you aleady know it, in the below command:

ln -s /path/to/mplayer /bin/mplayer

Ideally anything you type is searched in all directories specified in the $PATH variable.

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1  
Hi, Mathew, welcome to Unix & Linux. I think the OP's question is a little more complicated than the answer you're suggesting. I presume mplayer is already in their $PATH and they want something like mp<tab> to produce mplayer, instead of all the binaries that begin with mp (e.g., mpage mpcd mpartition mplayer etc.) –  drs Oct 15 '14 at 14:48
up vote 0 down vote

I don't know if I unterstood your need for this...
This would imply that your bash only knows one command beginning with f.
A basic idea of completion is: if it's ambiguous, print the possiblities.
So you could set your PATH to a directory only containing this one command and disable all bash builtins to get this work.

Anyhow, I can give you also a kind of workaround:

alias _='true &&'
complete -W foo _

So if you type _ <Tab> it will complete to _ foo which executes foo.

But nethertheless the alias f='foo' would be much easier.

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