Change default behavior of completion-ignored-extensions

Change default behavior of completion-ignored-extensions

[Andrew Korty]

Greetings.  How can I change the way completion-ignored-extensions is
used by find-file?

As it is, "lists of possible completions" aren't affected by this
variable:

,----[ C-h v completion-ignored-extensions RET ]
| Documentation:
| *Completion ignores filenames ending in any string in this list.
| This variable does not affect lists of possible completions,
| but does affect the commands that actually do completions.
`----

I'd like to add ./ and ../ to this variable and be able to
tab-complete right through a directory with only one interesting
entry.  For example, if I have a directory ~/foo/ containing a
subdirectory bar/, I should be able to type

        M-x find-file RET ~/foo TAB

and end up with ~/foo/bar/ in the minibuffer instead of first getting
"[Complete, but not unique]", hitting TAB again, getting
"Completion List" buffer containing ./, ../, and bar/, and having to
type "b TAB" to finally get what should have been obvious.

I understand that completion-ignored-extensions is not supposed to
work this way, but I want to change that behavior.  It seems like I
should be able to advise minibuffer-complete, but I haven't figured
out how to do that successfully.

-- 
Andrew J. Korty, Principal Security Engineer, GCIA, GCFA
Office of the Vice President for Information Technology
Indiana University

Change default behavior of completion-ignored-extensions

[Andrew Korty]

Greetings.  How can I change the way completion-ignored-extensions is
used by find-file?

As it is, "lists of possible completions" aren't affected by this
variable:

,----[ C-h v completion-ignored-extensions RET ]
| Documentation:
| *Completion ignores filenames ending in any string in this list.
| This variable does not affect lists of possible completions,
| but does affect the commands that actually do completions.
`----

I'd like to add ./ and ../ to this variable and be able to
tab-complete right through a directory with only one interesting
entry.  For example, if I have a directory ~/foo/ containing a
subdirectory bar/, I should be able to type

        M-x find-file RET ~/foo TAB

and end up with ~/foo/bar/ in the minibuffer instead of first getting
"[Complete, but not unique]", hitting TAB again, getting
"Completion List" buffer containing ./, ../, and bar/, and having to
type "b TAB" to finally get what should have been obvious.

I understand that completion-ignored-extensions is not supposed to
work this way, but I want to change that behavior.  It seems like I
should be able to advise minibuffer-complete, but I haven't figured
out how to do that successfully.

-- 
Andrew J. Korty, Principal Security Engineer, GCIA, GCFA
Office of the Vice President for Information Technology
Indiana University

Change default behavior of completion-ignored-extensions

[Andrew Korty]

Greetings.  How can I change the way completion-ignored-extensions is
used by find-file?

As it is, "lists of possible completions" aren't affected by this
variable:

,----[ C-h v completion-ignored-extensions RET ]
| Documentation:
| *Completion ignores filenames ending in any string in this list.
| This variable does not affect lists of possible completions,
| but does affect the commands that actually do completions.
`----

I'd like to add ./ and ../ to this variable and be able to
tab-complete right through a directory with only one interesting
entry.  For example, if I have a directory ~/foo/ containing a
subdirectory bar/, I should be able to type

        M-x find-file RET ~/foo TAB

and end up with ~/foo/bar/ in the minibuffer instead of first getting
"[Complete, but not unique]", hitting TAB again, getting
"Completion List" buffer containing ./, ../, and bar/, and having to
type "b TAB" to finally get what should have been obvious.

I understand that completion-ignored-extensions is not supposed to
work this way, but I want to change that behavior.  It seems like I
should be able to advise minibuffer-complete, but I haven't figured
out how to do that successfully.

-- 
Andrew J. Korty, Principal Security Engineer, GCIA, GCFA
Office of the Vice President for Information Technology
Indiana University

Re: Change default behavior of completion-ignored-extensions

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Andrew Korty <ajk@iu.edu>
> Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2003 19:00:31 -0500
> 
> I'd like to add ./ and ../ to this variable and be able to
> tab-complete right through a directory with only one interesting
> entry.

Emacs already filters out the uninteresting directory entries such as
"." and "..".  This happens automatically; the value of
completion-ignored-extensions does not need to include them.

> For example, if I have a directory ~/foo/ containing a
> subdirectory bar/, I should be able to type
> 
>         M-x find-file RET ~/foo TAB
> 
> and end up with ~/foo/bar/ in the minibuffer instead of first getting
> "[Complete, but not unique]", hitting TAB again, getting
> "Completion List" buffer containing ./, ../, and bar/, and having to
> type "b TAB" to finally get what should have been obvious.

What version of Emacs do you have there?  In Emacs 21.2, I type "C-x
C-f ~/foo TAB" and Emacs completes it to "~/foo/".  Another TAB gets
me "~/foo/bar/", just like I'd expect.  There are no "[Complete, but
not unique]" messages and no need to wade through useless completion
lists.

(The reason that you need 2 TABs to get what you want is because you
might wish to create a new file in ~/foo.  This is a well-documented
feature, unrelated to `completion-ignored-extensions'.)

Re: Change default behavior of completion-ignored-extensions

[Andrew Korty]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@elta.co.il> writes:

>> From: Andrew Korty <ajk@iu.edu>
>> Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2003 19:00:31 -0500
>> 
>> For example, if I have a directory ~/foo/ containing a
>> subdirectory bar/, I should be able to type
>> 
>>         M-x find-file RET ~/foo TAB
>> 
>> and end up with ~/foo/bar/ in the minibuffer instead of first getting
>> "[Complete, but not unique]", hitting TAB again, getting
>> "Completion List" buffer containing ./, ../, and bar/, and having to
>> type "b TAB" to finally get what should have been obvious.
>
> What version of Emacs do you have there?  In Emacs 21.2, I type "C-x
> C-f ~/foo TAB" and Emacs completes it to "~/foo/".  Another TAB gets
> me "~/foo/bar/", just like I'd expect.  There are no "[Complete, but
> not unique]" messages and no need to wade through useless completion
> lists.

Right you are -- I oversimplified the example.  I should have mentioned
~/foo/ also has a CVS/ subdirectory.  So I get a "Completion List"
containing ./, ../, CVS/, and bar/.  I want CVS/ to be ignored like
./ and ../ normally are.

-- 
Andrew J. Korty, Principal Security Engineer, GCIA, GCFA
Office of the Vice President for Information Technology
Indiana University

Re: Change default behavior of completion-ignored-extensions

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Andrew Korty <ajk@iu.edu>
> Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 09:43:44 -0500
> 
> Right you are -- I oversimplified the example.  I should have mentioned
> ~/foo/ also has a CVS/ subdirectory.  So I get a "Completion List"
> containing ./, ../, CVS/, and bar/.  I want CVS/ to be ignored like
> ./ and ../ normally are.

You still didn't tell what is your Emacs version :-(

I'm guessing it's 21.2 or some such, since that version (and all older
versions) had a bug in handling entries like "foo/" (meaning ignore
the directory `foo') in completion-ignored-extensions: they wouldn't
ignore these directories.  You will see that "CVS/" is already in
completion-ignored-extensions.

This bug is fixed in the CVS, so a future version will be free of it.

Re: Change default behavior of completion-ignored-extensions

[Andrew Korty]

"Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@elta.co.il> writes:

>> From: Andrew Korty <ajk@iu.edu>
>> Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 09:43:44 -0500
>> 
>> Right you are -- I oversimplified the example.  I should have mentioned
>> ~/foo/ also has a CVS/ subdirectory.  So I get a "Completion List"
>> containing ./, ../, CVS/, and bar/.  I want CVS/ to be ignored like
>> ./ and ../ normally are.
>
> You still didn't tell what is your Emacs version :-(

Sorry, forgot.  It's 21.3.1.

> I'm guessing it's 21.2 or some such, since that version (and all older
> versions) had a bug in handling entries like "foo/" (meaning ignore
> the directory `foo') in completion-ignored-extensions: they wouldn't
> ignore these directories.  You will see that "CVS/" is already in
> completion-ignored-extensions.
>
> This bug is fixed in the CVS, so a future version will be free of it.

Thanks, I'll try the CVS version.

-- 
Andrew J. Korty, Principal Security Engineer, GCIA, GCFA
Office of the Vice President for Information Technology
Indiana University