Re: [PATCH] verbose style on by default (was Re: [PATCH] fix core dump by reverse-menu-complete)

[Mikael Magnusson <mikachu@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Mar 13, 2026 at 7:46 AM Jun T <takimoto-j@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> > 2026/03/12 5:06、Bart Schaefer <schaefer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>のメール:
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 11, 2026 at 10:15 AM Mikael Magnusson <mikachu@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> If we want to have verbose consistently enabled, maybe it's better to
> >> change _parameters back to extra-verbose? (despite the rationale given
> >> in 51761).
> >
> > Is this even sufficient?  Verbose has become true for a larger number
> > of cases than just _parameters.
>
> Changed files are:
>         _find, _git, _iftop, _tcpdump      “small change” (I hope)
>         _parameters                              "big change”
>         _globquals                                “medium? change”  e.g,  echo *(<TAB>
>
> If big/medium changes need be avoided, we can just change zshcompsys(1)
> man page (no default for verbose style) so that each completer can freely
> determine what is offered by verbose=on.

Looking back a bit at the git history, and the commit message that
added the "as it is by default" phrase:
"unposted: rewritten compsys.yo down to end of _describe function" Mon
Apr 14 20:10:00 2003
I think it's likely that it was only meant to say that it is enabled
for _describe by default, ie, showing the description strings that
many (almost all?) completers pass to _describe or _arguments etc.
There were a couple of explicit users of verbose back then too, but
(if my grep-fu holds), none that used zstyle -t.

I think we should probably revert this change and update the
documentation instead, though I'm not sure exactly what to say.

As a side thought, I think showing the descriptions for what options
actually do is a little different from showing the contents of every
parameter being offered, right? (I didn't check what effect the other
completers have when verbose is on/off). _arguments, _values and
_describe mention that the verbose style is used for descriptions, but
the _parameters entry does not, maybe we could just say something like
"enabled by default except where otherwise noted" or something (and
note it is off in _parameters)? It's not like users have any other
easy way to figure out which completer even uses the verbose style at
all anyway.

While searching around for mentions of the verbose style I also came
across this example, which is pretty useless in the present state:
       For example, many completion functions can generate matches in
a simple and  a  verbose  form  and  use the verbose style to decide
which form should be used.  To make all such functions use the verbose
form, put
              zstyle ':completion:*' verbose yes