ZSH: tab complete file in subdirectory by name

Question

I would like to be able to type a filename in zsh, hit tab, and see a list of files that match that name in any subdirectories of my current directory. Then I could tab through those results and hit enter to select a certain file, just like the built-in zsh tab completion functionality works.

Example desired functionality:

$ emacs app.css [tab] *www/css/app.css* tmp/static/app.css [enter] $ emacs www/css/app.css

If this is not currently a feature, I assume I could write a custom completion script to implement it.

Adaephon · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-08 21:12:52Z

3

You can achieve something similar by utilizing the ** pattern (match over multiple directories) and by adding the control function _expand to the completer style (if not already the case).

As a minimum, you need to make the following settings:

autoload -U compinit zstyle ':completion:*' completer _expand compinit

Then you can get the desired list with

% emacs **/app.css[TAB]

It even allows for the option to open all matching files at once.

answered Jul 8, 2016 at 21:12

Adaephon

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2 Comments

Harry Len Over a year ago

I really like this solution but when I put it in my .zshrc file it prevents the standard tab complete from working. Where do I need to put this so I can make it work with standard tab complete? I'm using zsh-autosuggestions, I am a software dev but I've not done shell scripting before.

Adaephon Over a year ago

From what I can see, it should not interfere with zsh-autosuggestions. But if compinit is already configured and loaded in your ~/.zshrc, then just adding this as it is might disable some settings. Check, if you already have any of these lines in your configuration, in which case you can just add _expand to the list of arguments after completer. For example, I have zstyle ':completion:*' completer _expand _complete _approximate in my own configuration. If you do not have these lines (especially compinit), you might not be using the "new" (since 2000) completion system.

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