Where is the tab completion "compspec" for commands like cat and ls defined?

Question

Some pretext:

I'm installing Jenkins locally, and following the installation, I'm asked to produce a password from a text file in this folder: /var/lib/jenkins/secrets/

However, after entering cat /var/lib/jenkins-secrets/ and the first letter of the filename, lo-and-behold, tab and double tab do nothing - autocompletion is broken!

So after some reading, I've found out that autocompletion is defined via files called compspecs, and that the variables GLOBIGNORE and FIGNORE are used to define what is ignored in autocompletion. I'm curious now though, and I want to know exactly how ls and cat are made to ignore my /secrets/ folder's contents. After entering the following command to see the list of compspec files:

ls /etc/bash_completion.d

I only see the folders:

apt-linux-mint  git-prompt

Is there a general compspec for standard bash commands? What exactly stops me from double-tabbing in /var/lib/jenkins/secrets/?

Does this answer your question? Bash tab completion appears to read uneeded file system info? — Raffa, May 11 '21 at 23:59
I'd bet on permissions (or lack thereof), than any directories being ignored — muru, May 12 '21 at 00:37

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 12 '21 at 01:44

0

As per the comment from the user "muru" on my question, this was due to permissions, not compspecs.

Edit: Thanks to Raffa too for some useful info.

answered May 12 '21 at 01:44

DVukajlo

11

Where is the tab completion "compspec" for commands like cat and ls defined?

1 Answers1