Re: completion

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 01/08/2015 12:31 AM, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> On Jan 7,  3:00pm, Ray Andrews wrote:
> }
> } To put it in English, what I'm reaching for (I think), sounds something
> } like this:
> }
> } If [something-on-command-line] matches [this-pattern] (a filter), then
> } expand that pattern using [this-particular-set-of-rules], and then
> } search (go find) in [this-particular-group-of-objects] for
> } [this-particular-glob-pattern] and put that on my command line.
>
> Incidentally, no, it's not like that at all.  In fact its so far from
> that, that I can't even reword the above to give a better sense of it.
> Completion involves several layers of loops-within-loops, it can't be
> described in a single if-then sentence.
Well that's hardly a surprise to hear, because the square peg of what
my preconception is/was definitely does not go through the round hole
of what happens.  You know, I was going to give completion a rest and
try again in a year, but since Vincent brought the subject up again, and
there's new food to digest, I'd better reread the docs again in the light
of this new explanation and maybe I will get it. At the moment, my mind
just melts down at the 'asterisk' part, I just can't grok ambiguously
omitted field separators, it ain't humanly decent.
> If you ignore a lot of the looping parts and the listing of ambiguous
> matches, then it's sort of like:
>
> Choose a completer and pass it some information about the command line,
> from which it will construct a context which summarizes the meaning of
> the command line in about six words.  For each/any configuration option
> that may be useful, use the context to find the best definition among
> the set of zstyle patterns the user has defined.  Some of those options
> (called styles) should explain where to look for [this-particular-group-
> of-strings], otherwise use a fallback to find them.  Compare whatever
> strings you end up with to the word to the left of or under the cursor
> and put the longest unambiguous common substring that matches on the
> command line, assuming the other styles said that's what you should do.
> If there aren't any matches at all, try again with the next completer
> until something is found or there are no more completers.
I'm lost after 'choose a completer' ;-) ... what does that mean? I expect
that zsh *provides* me with the completer ....

Nevermind! I've got to reread.  For now, I'm interested to see how you
respond to Vincent, he already mostly understands this.  I don't
understand enough to be even worth talking to.