I made an alias to save some keystrokes with working with systemd:
$ alias sctl='systemctl' However, this breaks tab completion for the subcommands. Is it possible to alias a command without breaking tab completion?
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3 Answers
First find out which complete-function is used for the systemctl command:
complete | grep " systemctl$" The output looks like this:
complete -F _functionname systemctl Then use:
complete -F _functionname sctl To register the function for the completion of your alias.
Now, when you type sctl <tab><tab>, the same suggestions as when you type systemctl will appear.
- As extra note: Use -c instead of -F if you need package autocompletion for your alias.Adrian Lopez– Adrian Lopez2018-05-21 02:36:18 +00:00Commented May 21, 2018 at 2:36
- 7Note this only works for autocompletion on the command itself, not on the command + args. Eg if you
alias='command arg1 arg2'then the above will produce completion as though you had just typedcommand, notcommand arg1 arg2.Oliver– Oliver2020-02-14 14:00:28 +00:00Commented Feb 14, 2020 at 14:00 - This was giving me
bash: completion: function `_systemctl' not foundwhen typingsctl <tab><tab>. I fixed this by addingsource /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/systemctl, which defines the function, beforecomplete -F _systemctl sctl.lapis– lapis2020-05-23 12:47:44 +00:00Commented May 23, 2020 at 12:47 - about loading completion functions,
_completion_loader <commandname>is sometimes the best way for that. I wanted to note that this answer doesn't always work. I found some completions that depend on_parse_help, they call help on the command itself. and in that context the alias apparently does not exist, so no help-derived completions work.creanion– creanion2022-09-25 20:32:19 +00:00Commented Sep 25, 2022 at 20:32 - @creanion Aliases don't work with
_parse_helpbut shell functions should.jw013– jw0132023-05-06 20:53:59 +00:00Commented May 6, 2023 at 20:53
After installing this tool, you can do it like this:
In
~/.bash_profile:alias sctl='systemctl'In
~/.bash_completion:complete -F _complete_alias sctlType
sctl <tab>to showsystemctlcommands:$ sctl <Tab> add-requires add-wants cancel cat condreload ...
I hacked this to have completion also work for systemctl+args. I copied some parts of the source code of bash-completion for systemctl to manage that (/usr/share/bash-completion/completions/systemctl).
alias ssr='sudo systemctl restart' alias sss='sudo systemctl status' alias ssp='sudo systemctl stop' # Load necessary functions in bash-completion's source code for systemctl (get_*_units) source /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/systemctl # Manually recreate some functions _systemctl_status() { comps=$( __get_non_template_units --system "${COMP_WORDS[1]}" ) compopt -o filenames COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -o filenames -W '$comps') ) return 0 } _systemctl_restart() { comps=$( __get_restartable_units --system "${COMP_WORDS[1]}" ) compopt -o filenames COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -o filenames -W '$comps') ) return 0 } _systemctl_stop() { comps=$( __get_stoppable_units --system "${COMP_WORDS[1]}" ) compopt -o filenames COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -o filenames -W '$comps') ) return 0 } complete -F _systemctl_restart ssr complete -F _systemctl_status sss complete -F _systemctl_stop ssp This can easily be expanded for other systemctl commands, just look for the right get_*_units command in the source file and copy my examples.
I also tried to modify the $COMP_WORDS array to get some general solution working for all commands, but to no avail.
