Re: completion

[Bart Schaefer <schaefer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Dec 10,  5:17pm, Ray Andrews wrote:
} Subject: Re: completion
}
} On 12/10/2014 04:34 PM, Oliver Kiddle wrote:
} > The five colons are included because they prevent the completer style 
} > from matching in other contexts where you might want a different 
} > configuration. 
} 
} They 'prevent' ...  What would not be prevented if there were only four 
} colons?

OK, now you're just being hyperbolic.  Did you not read any of the doc
that Larry and Oliver mentioned?

If there were a different number of colons, the style wouldn't match any
context, and would be useless.

} I normally think of code giving instructions to 'do' something. Here 
} it's telling zsh *not* to do something

Let's rephrase Oliver's sentence:

The five colons are included to ensure that the completer style matches
exactly the one context where this configuration applies.

In most cases, people write ':completion:*' so as not to care about the
number of colons.  The Book is just being extra pedantic.