Command ($ or #) line; smart completion?

[Nat Gross]

On 11/28/05, Peter Gordon <admin at ramshacklestudios.com> wrote:
> Nat Gross:
> > 1. Typing a partial command that exists in history, hit <F8>, and the
> > command either gets completed (if unique string), or a little menu is
> > presented.
> I've read that you can achieve something similar to this by using the
> PgUp/PgDn keys with GNU Bash, but I've not tried it all.
I see now that the Pg keys do something, but cant figure what its doing.

> > 2. Any command that involves a file or directory (in the current dir)
> > can have the file/dir name auto-entered also via
> > 'partial-string+function key'.
>
> Bash's programmable completion is your friend. :-)
> You need to install the bash-completion package and make sure you
> source /etc/profile.d/bash-completion in your startup scripts
> (probably easiest to add it at the end of /etc/bashrc so that
> all users gain this benefit).
>
> Then you can type the first few letters of a command and
> hit the tab key, and it will fill in the command name,
> or as much as it can of it if two commands start with the
> same sequence of characters. It also allows this type of
> completion for files/directories, as well as many of the
> standard commands.
>
Interesting note. I do NOT [yet] have the bash-completion pkg
installed, and upon reading your message I tried hitting tab. Hitting
tab twice produced these results.
Thanks!