Mdthbs

There is a great thread about this on the Ubuntu forums. Ole J proposes the following alias completion definition function:

function make-completion-wrapper () {

  local function_name="$2"

  local arg_count=$(($#-3))

  local comp_function_name="$1"

  shift 2

  local function="

    function $function_name {

      ((COMP_CWORD+=$arg_count))

      COMP_WORDS=( "$@" ${COMP_WORDS[@]:1} )

      "$comp_function_name"

      return 0

    }"

  eval "$function"

  echo $function_name

  echo "$function"

}

Use it to define a completion function for your alias, then specify that function as a completer for the alias:

make-completion-wrapper _apt_get _apt_get_install apt-get install

complete -F _apt_get_install apt-inst

I prefer to use aliases for adding always-used arguments to existing programs. For instance, with grep, I always want to skip devices and binary files, so I make an alias for grep. For adding new commands such as grepbin, I use a shell script in my ~/bin folder. If that folder is in your path, it will get autocompleted.

Try complete-alias, which solves this problem exactly.

After install it you can use one generic function to complete many aliases like this:

complete -F _complete_alias <myalias1>

complete -F _complete_alias <myalias2>

complete -F _complete_alias <myalias3>

You may want to source the complete_alias file in every bash instance through .bash_profile or similar.

installation

mkdir ~/.bash_completion.d

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cykerway/complete-alias/master/completions/bash_completion.sh 

     > ~/.bash_completion.d/complete_alias

application

source ~/.bash_completion.d/complete_alias



alias container=docker container

complete -F _complete_alias container

container can now be autocompleted by the original _docker() completion handler;

$ container l<Tab>

logs  ls    



$ container s<Tab>

start  stats  stop   

2018 answer

You must add your alias to the program 'complete'. Depending the kind of autocompletion you want to achieve, you must use -c or -F.

For package autocompletion:

complete -c name_of_your_alias

For command autocompletion:

complete -F name_of_your_alias

To check if your alias was added correctly:

complete | grep name_of_your_alias

Finally, to remove an alias from 'complete':

complete -r name_of_your_alias

In your case:

complete -c apt-inst

Here's the code from Shawn J. Goff's answer with some improvements:

• Fixed syntax errors highlighted by shell-check, eg the first " of "$@" actually ended the function definition string.


• Removed the return 0 so that the return value of the underlying function can be passed back to the caller.

.

# Wraps a completion function, eg for use with an alias.

# Usage:

# make-completion-wrapper <actual completion function> <name of new func.>

#                         <command name> <list supplied arguments>

# eg.

#   alias agi='apt-get install'

#   make-completion-wrapper _apt_get _apt_get_install apt-get install

#     # defines a function called _apt_get_install (that's $2) that will

#     # complete the 'agi' alias. 

#   complete -F _apt_get_install agi

function make-completion-wrapper {

  local function_name="$2"

  local arg_count=$(( $#-3 ))

  local comp_function_name="$1"

  shift 2

  local function="function $function_name {

      (( COMP_CWORD += $arg_count ))

      COMP_WORDS=( "$@" ${COMP_WORDS[@]:1} )

      "$comp_function_name"

    }"

  eval "$function"

  # echo "$function"

}

export -f make-completion-wrapper