Filename completion

Filename completion

[Boris H.]

I always get confused with spc and tab for filename completion. What do I 
have to add to my .emacs to complete filenames with tab within Emacs, just 
as Bash does?

Boris

Re: Filename completion

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Boris H." <nosp@m.de>
> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
> Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:38:43 -0500
> 
> What do I have to add to my .emacs to complete filenames with tab
> within Emacs, just as Bash does?

Nothing.  Emacs has TAB-completion turned on by default.  If that
doesn't work for you, please tell the details (what did you type and
what did Emacs do in response).

Re: Filename completion

[martin]

hi,

for example: if you open a file with find-file the TAB key is alreday
bound to the function minibuffer-complete.

martin

"BH" == Boris H <nosp@m.de> writes:
 BH> Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:38:43 -0500
 BH> 
 BH> I always get confused with spc and tab for filename
 BH> completion. What do I have to add to my .emacs to complete
 BH> filenames with tab within Emacs, just as Bash does?
 BH> 
 BH> Boris
 BH> 
-- 
martin dot fischer at boschrexroth dot de

bug#4004: filename completion

[Colin Williams]

In 23.1.50.1, there's a bad interaction between tab completion and
tramp filenames.  If you try to do tab completion on
"/ssh:remote-host:~/~/te", where the file "test" exists on the remote
host but not locally, the completion says there's no match.

Colin

bug#4004: filename completion

[Michael Albinus]

Colin Williams <lackita@gmail.com> writes:

> In 23.1.50.1, there's a bad interaction between tab completion and
> tramp filenames.  If you try to do tab completion on
> "/ssh:remote-host:~/~/te", where the file "test" exists on the remote
> host but not locally, the completion says there's no match.

For me, it works.

What happens if you try to complete "/ssh:remote-host:~/te"?

Has the file "test" been created on the remote host outside Emacs, while
Tramp was running already?

Have you enabled partial-completion-mode, which is needed for Tramp
sometimes?

> Colin

Best regards, Michael.

bug#4004: filename completion

[Stefan Monnier]

> Have you enabled partial-completion-mode, which is needed for Tramp
> sometimes?

Note that partial-completion-mode is on the way out, so if you need
partial-completion-mode to make it work, it's important to know it.


        Stefan

bug#4004: filename completion

[Michael Albinus]

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

>> Have you enabled partial-completion-mode, which is needed for Tramp
>> sometimes?
>
> Note that partial-completion-mode is on the way out, so if you need
> partial-completion-mode to make it work, it's important to know it.

I must check the code, but IIRC partial-completion-mode is just an
indication for Tramp whether some file name completion functionality
shall be enabled, before Tramp is fully loaded. There were people who
disliked Tramp's file name completion.

If partial-completion-mode will be kicked off, Tramp might need another
indication. Just tell me when it happens, that I can change Tramp.

Just now?

>         Stefan

Best regards, Michael.

bug#4004: filename completion

[Stefan Monnier]

>>> Have you enabled partial-completion-mode, which is needed for Tramp
>>> sometimes?
>> 
>> Note that partial-completion-mode is on the way out, so if you need
>> partial-completion-mode to make it work, it's important to know it.

> I must check the code, but IIRC partial-completion-mode is just an
> indication for Tramp whether some file name completion functionality
> shall be enabled, before Tramp is fully loaded. There were people who
> disliked Tramp's file name completion.

Then this needs to be fixed.  Looking at the code, I can't quite
understand what it does: it seems that Tramp's method/user/host
completion is only activated for people you use either
partial-completion-mode, ido, icycle, or XEmacs.  I'm not sure what's
the logic behind it, but I'd rather just activate it based on a specific
configuration variable (or just always activate it, as you do in
XEmacs).  In Emacs-23, the functionality that was previous offered by
partial-completion-mode is enabled by default (tho implemented
differently and activated differently as well).


        Stefan

Re: bug#4004: filename completion

[Michael Albinus]

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

[added emacs-devel, we shall continue to discuss there]

>> I must check the code, but IIRC partial-completion-mode is just an
>> indication for Tramp whether some file name completion functionality
>> shall be enabled, before Tramp is fully loaded. There were people who
>> disliked Tramp's file name completion.
>
> Then this needs to be fixed.  Looking at the code, I can't quite
> understand what it does: it seems that Tramp's method/user/host
> completion is only activated for people you use either
> partial-completion-mode, ido, icycle, or XEmacs.  I'm not sure what's
> the logic behind it, but I'd rather just activate it based on a specific
> configuration variable (or just always activate it, as you do in
> XEmacs).  In Emacs-23, the functionality that was previous offered by
> partial-completion-mode is enabled by default (tho implemented
> differently and activated differently as well).

There was a discussion about some years ago, when I did add Tramp's
autoloads. People were annoyed, that even after typing something like
"/a" in the minibuffer, Tramp was already loaded, which raised some
delays. So it was suggested to make Tramp's autoloading optional. It was
even requested that this "optionality" should not be something, which
the user has to disnable herself; users should not be bashed by a new
feature they are not interested in.

The compromise was to find indications, were it could be expected that
the user would appreciate Tramp. partial-completion-mode was the first
candidate, ido and icycle were added later. The XEmacs case is
different, because there is another syntax for Tramp.

If partial-completion-mode is discarded in Emacs, we should either find
a replacement for this "indication", or we shall decide, that Tramp *is*
always loaded as soon as somebody writes an absolute filename in the
minibuffer.

The check for partial-completion-mode shall remain in tramp.el, for
backward compatibility.

>         Stefan

Best regards, Michael.

Re: bug#4004: filename completion

[Stefan Monnier]

> There was a discussion about some years ago, when I did add Tramp's
> autoloads. People were annoyed, that even after typing something like
> "/a" in the minibuffer, Tramp was already loaded, which raised some
> delays. So it was suggested to make Tramp's autoloading optional. It was
> even requested that this "optionality" should not be something, which
> the user has to disnable herself; users should not be bashed by a new
> feature they are not interested in.

That's beginning to make more sense.  But I just tried the following:

   emacs -Q
   C-x C-f /a TAB :

and then

   emacs -Q
   M-: (setq partial-completion-mode t)
   C-x C-f /a TAB :

and I don't see any difference (Tramp gets loaded when I hit : and no
earlier).  Could you show me another example where I can see
the difference, so I can better understand the tradeoffs?


        Stefan

Re: filename completion

[Michael Albinus]

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

>> There was a discussion about some years ago, when I did add Tramp's
>> autoloads. People were annoyed, that even after typing something like
>> "/a" in the minibuffer, Tramp was already loaded, which raised some
>> delays. So it was suggested to make Tramp's autoloading optional. It was
>> even requested that this "optionality" should not be something, which
>> the user has to disnable herself; users should not be bashed by a new
>> feature they are not interested in.
>
> That's beginning to make more sense.  But I just tried the following:
>
>    emacs -Q
>    C-x C-f /a TAB :
>
> and then
>
>    emacs -Q
>    M-: (setq partial-completion-mode t)
>    C-x C-f /a TAB :
>
> and I don't see any difference (Tramp gets loaded when I hit : and no
> earlier).  Could you show me another example where I can see
> the difference, so I can better understand the tradeoffs?

You are right, partial-completion-mode is out of the game. No idea why.
You can see the effect with

   emacs -Q
   M-x ido-mode
   C-x C-f /s

Tramp is loaded after typing s, and you see all possible methods for
expanding.

>         Stefan

Best regards, Michael.