bug#9554: 24.0.50; shell-mode completion broken

bug#9554: 24.0.50; shell-mode completion broken

[Romain Francoise]

I disagree with the following change that was made in Emacs 24:

| ** Completion
| *** shell-mode uses pcomplete rules, with the standard completion UI.

It results in broken completion in two cases that I've noticed (before
disabling it) and probably in lots of other cases. pcomplete had
practically no users until now, it's not good enough to be enabled by
default in Emacs 24.

The two cases I've noticed:

1) Create two files with `touch foo bar'. Then type `rm foo b' and try
   to complete 'bar'.

2) Try to scp a local file (e.g. `scp /<TAB>'). pcomplete insists on
   completing host names, not file names.



In GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.6)
 of 2011-09-18 on silenus
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11003000
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: en_US.utf8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
M-x r e p o <tab> r <tab> <return>

Recent messages:
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
Making completion list...

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort gnus-util mail-extr message format-spec rfc822 mml mml-sec
mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045
ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mailabbrev mail-utils gmm-utils mailheader
emacsbug help-mode easymenu view time-date tooltip ediff-hook vc-hooks
lisp-float-type mwheel x-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image fringe
lisp-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar
mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cham georgian
utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean
japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian
cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev
minibuffer loaddefs button faces cus-face files text-properties overlay
sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget
hashtable-print-readable backquote make-network-process dbusbind
dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk
x-toolkit x multi-tty emacs)

bug#9554: 24.0.50; shell-mode completion broken

[Glenn Morris]

Romain Francoise wrote:

> 2) Try to scp a local file (e.g. `scp /<TAB>'). pcomplete insists on
>    completing host names, not file names.

This is

http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=9377

bug#9554: 24.0.50; shell-mode completion broken

[Stefan Monnier]

> It results in broken completion in two cases that I've noticed (before
> disabling it) and probably in lots of other cases.  pcomplete had
> practically no users until now, it's not good enough to be enabled by
> default in Emacs 24.

It's been enabled by default for several months now.

> The two cases I've noticed:
> 1) Create two files with `touch foo bar'. Then type `rm foo b' and try
>    to complete 'bar'.

That was reported a few weeks ago by Kenichi Handa, and I happen to fix
it just a few minutes ago.

> 2) Try to scp a local file (e.g. `scp /<TAB>'). pcomplete insists on
>    completing host names, not file names.

Yes, that's an instance of a more general problem with pcomplete.
I have a fix in the works for it (but don't hold your breath, my
progress is fairly slow on this front).


        Stefan

bug#9554: 24.0.50; shell-mode completion broken

[Romain Francoise]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> It's been enabled by default for several months now.

I know. I'm reporting the bug now because the pretest is approaching and
it's still broken.

> Yes, that's an instance of a more general problem with pcomplete.
> I have a fix in the works for it (but don't hold your breath, my
> progress is fairly slow on this front).

All the more reason to not enable it by default in this release.

bug#9554: 24.0.50; shell-mode completion broken

[Michael Albinus]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> It results in broken completion in two cases that I've noticed (before
>> disabling it) and probably in lots of other cases.  pcomplete had
>> practically no users until now, it's not good enough to be enabled by
>> default in Emacs 24.
>
> It's been enabled by default for several months now.
>
>> The two cases I've noticed:
>> 1) Create two files with `touch foo bar'. Then type `rm foo b' and try
>>    to complete 'bar'.
>
> That was reported a few weeks ago by Kenichi Handa, and I happen to fix
> it just a few minutes ago.
>
>> 2) Try to scp a local file (e.g. `scp /<TAB>'). pcomplete insists on
>>    completing host names, not file names.
>
> Yes, that's an instance of a more general problem with pcomplete.
> I have a fix in the works for it (but don't hold your breath, my
> progress is fairly slow on this front).

There is at least another broken use case, reported on the Tramp mailing
list:

3) Open a buffer dedicated to a remote host, for example "C-x f
   /scp:host:". Start `shell', it runs on the remote host. Goto a
   directory which does exist on the remote host, but not on the local
   one, for example "cd /sh <TAB>". It does not expand to "/share" as
   expected, instead it tries to complete the filename on the local host.

This did work before.

>         Stefan

Best regards, Michael.

bug#9554: 24.0.50; shell-mode completion broken

[Glenn Morris]

>>> 1) Create two files with `touch foo bar'. Then type `rm foo b' and try
>>>    to complete 'bar'.
>>
>> That was reported a few weeks ago by Kenichi Handa, and I happen to fix
>> it just a few minutes ago.
>>
>>> 2) Try to scp a local file (e.g. `scp /<TAB>'). pcomplete insists on
>>>    completing host names, not file names.

This is http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=9377

> 3) Open a buffer dedicated to a remote host, for example "C-x f
>    /scp:host:". Start `shell', it runs on the remote host. Goto a
>    directory which does exist on the remote host, but not on the local
>    one, for example "cd /sh <TAB>". It does not expand to "/share" as
>    expected, instead it tries to complete the filename on the local host.

This is http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=9616


Since it is better to have bug reports that focus on individual issues,
and since each issue in this report is the subject of another report, I
don't think this report needs to stay open. (The general issue of
"should shell use pcomplete by default" seems more like an emacs-devel
topic.)

bug#9377: bug#9554: 24.0.50; shell-mode completion broken

[Stefan Monnier]

>>>>> "Stefan" == Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>>> 2) Try to scp a local file (e.g. `scp /<TAB>'). pcomplete insists on
>>> completing host names, not file names.

> This should be fixed as well, now (and it additionally completes remote
> file names via Tramp).


>         Stefan