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I'm using bash, but I'd like to have zsh style autocomplete (you hit tab and it tabs through the possibilities), rather than what bash seems to do, which is display a list of possibilities but not choose anything until I type some more to disambiguate. How can I get zsh type behavior in bash?

Searching for a solution has turned up lots of answers to other questions, so I'm hoping I can get a simple answer here (i.e. what to paste into my .bashrc).

(And to answer the obvious question, I need to use bash here because I just joined a team and they do some stuff to set up bash to make the environment easier to work in. I can probably eventually make sure I have it working the same way in zsh, but for now it's easier if I use bash and just get it behaving more like zsh during interactive use.)

Wuffers
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Gordon Seidoh Worley
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4 Answers4

44

To get first completion and a listing you can add the following to bashrc

bind 'set show-all-if-ambiguous on'
bind 'TAB:menu-complete'

show-all-if-ambiguous: This alters the default behavior of the completion functions. If set to ‘on’, words which have more than one possible completion cause the matches to be listed immediately instead of ringing the bell. The default value is ‘off’.

see Bash Manual for more information.

Edit:

This doesn't make bash work exactly as zsh tho. Zsh will complete up until the next ambiguous match. Bash will just cycle through all matches.

e.g.

$ ls ~/.ba<tab> .bashrc .bash_history .bash_profile

  • zsh: will complete up until ~/.bash and present a list of matches which handily enables you to append _ and hit <tab> again.
  • bash: will just cycle through all ~/.ba* matches.
ingkebil
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    I liked using the arrow keys, and the visual indication of zsh's autocompletion. Is there a way to get those behaviors with bash? I switching back for better server compatibility – CESCO Feb 03 '16 at 22:52
  • Why do you use the `bind` command before `set`? Isn't it enough to just set the setting to on? Are there any advantages? – winklerrr Feb 19 '20 at 08:18
  • I actually like the bash behavior better. Thanks for explaining this and giving the excellent answer! – young_souvlaki Aug 26 '20 at 17:30
  • @winklerrr we're setting a built-in variable of the readline library, for which you the `bind` command. You can list all the readline variables with `bind -v`. What you're referring to is `set` which sets a bash variable. – ingkebil Aug 27 '20 at 19:06
37

I use 

bind 'TAB:menu-complete'

to achieve it

Wuffers
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Ciclamino
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16

In Bash: Zsh like autocomplete can be achieved with Ble.sh.

# Quick TRIAL without installation
# requires the commands git, make (GNU make), and gawk

git clone --recursive https://github.com/akinomyoga/ble.sh.git
make -C ble.sh
source ble.sh/out/ble.sh

Here is a quick demo of Bash with blesh. For more details see: README of Ble.sh

enter image description here

Rakib Fiha
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    May I know the reason why it's unnecessarily downvoted without any explanation? Please help to improve this answer by suggesting an edit instead of downvoting without any insightful and actionable details. – Rakib Fiha Apr 28 '21 at 07:56
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    That's exactly what i was searching for! Thanks. – mathway Feb 08 '22 at 22:20
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    This is the best answer. Dependencies for `ble.sh` are `gmake` & `gawk`. Prefer `gmake -C ble.sh`, if possible. To install under `~/.local/share/blesh` use `gmake install` (or `make install`) and then add `source /home/ipellegrini/.local/share/blesh/ble.sh` to your `.bashrc` (or `.bash_profile` on MacOS). – Kamafeather Jan 12 '23 at 20:34
  • Love this answer. Works as expected. – rahuljain1311 Jun 28 '23 at 09:24
3

Following up on ingkebil's answer, for those that put bind and set into inputrc:

$ tail -n 4 /etc/inputrc
# zsh like completion:
# https://superuser.com/questions/288714/bash-autocomplete-like-zsh
set show-all-if-ambiguous on
TAB:menu-complete

I like keeping my .bashrc clean.

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    ... and instead pollute the system-wide `inputrc`? Fine if it's your personal system; dubious as general advice. – tripleee Jan 30 '22 at 09:30