Make eshell tab completion behave like Bash

Question

How can I make eshell autocomplete behave like Bash and Emacs in general i.e. it offers a list of choices rather than arbitrary selects one for you?

For example, if I have two directories "Download" and "Downloads", when I type "Down" and hit TAB, I expect another buffer pops up and shows me the choices. But eshell just completes it for me, i.e. if I press TAB, it completes to "Download"; hit TAB again, it changes to "Downloads".

Steatite

You're probably getting some interference from your custom code. Try emacs -q: it works. – Respond

I tried emacs -q and it didn't work. For example, if I have two directories "Download" and "Downloads", when I type "Down" and hit TAB, I expect another buffer pops up and shows me the choices. But eshell just complete it for me, i.e. if I press TAB, it complete to "Download"; hit TAB again, it changes to "Downloads". – Steatite

Answer 1

Use this:

(add-hook
 'eshell-mode-hook
 (lambda ()
   (setq pcomplete-cycle-completions nil)))

Respond

It didn't work as well. I tried adding it to my init file as well as manually modified in my running Emacs then start a new eshell. Still not produced my desire behaviour. – Steatite

You need to set the value of the variable in eshell-mode-hook (or use setq-default) – Snoopy

Normally it would be possible to customize the variable. But EShell seems to change the variable, which makes it necessary to update it in the hook. – Underworld

Probably should use setq-local rather than setq? – Birnbaum

@xuhdev: or do as proposed in the other answers and (setq eshell-cmpl-cycle-completions nil) – Pissarro

Answer 2

(add-hook
 'eshell-mode-hook
 (lambda ()
   (setq pcomplete-cycle-completions nil)))

and

(setq eshell-cmpl-cycle-completions nil)

Both do as you ask and show a buffer listing the completions when I run my emacs as 'emacs -q' to avoid my own customizations. This is with emacs 23.3, are you running a much older version?

Also see http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EshellCompletion which is where I first went to check this out.

Steps to try this out:

1. Start emacs using 'emacs -q' as the command -- no other arguments.
2. Change to the *scratch* buffer
3. Paste or type in one of the above code snippets
4. Put your cursor at the end of the snippet and press 'C-e' to execute the code.
5. Start eshell
6. test
7. if neither one works, report back here with your version info and any other relevant details

Firstling

Thanks. I didn't know that I have to attach to eshell-mode-hook. Things work as expected. I am using the latest Emacs. – Steatite

Answer 3

You only need to have the following line:

(setq eshell-cmpl-cycle-completions nil)

eshell-mode automatically set pcomplete-cycle-completions to the value of eshell-cmpl-cycle-completions locally.

Birnbaum