Shell completions with whitespace seem to work differently on bash vs. other supported shells #1740

kangasta · 2022-06-21T18:59:45Z

Other shell completions escape whitespace in completions, but bash completions seems to add completions with whitespace as multiple suggestions or multiple arguments depending on bash version. I would expect also bash completions to escape whitespace in completions from ValidArgsFunction.

bash v3:

$ ./sh-completion-demo whitespace [TAB][TAB]
no-whitespace    with whitespace
$ ./sh-completion-demo whitespace w[TAB]
$ ./sh-completion-demo whitespace with whitespace

bash v4 & v5

$ ./sh-completion-demo whitespace [TAB][TAB]
no-whitespace  whitespace     with

fish:

> ./sh-completion-demo whitespace [TAB]
no-whitespace  with whitespace
> ./sh-completion-demo whitespace w[TAB]
> ./sh-completion-demo whitespace with\ whitespace

zsh:

% ./sh-completion-demo whitespace [TAB]
no-whitespace    with whitespace
% ./sh-completion-demo whitespace w[TAB]
% ./sh-completion-demo whitespace with\ whitespace

powershell

> .\sh-completion-demo.exe whitespace [TAB]
> .\sh-completion-demo.exe whitespace with` whitespace

Minimal code to reproduce above usage with github.com/spf13/cobra v1.5.0 (Gist):

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"os"

	"github.com/spf13/cobra"
)

var RootCmd = &cobra.Command{
	Use:  "sh-completion-demo",
	Long: "Demo shell completion with whitespace",
}

var WhitespaceCmd = &cobra.Command{
	Use:   "whitespace",
	Short: "Noun with completion that includes whitespace",
	RunE: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
		if args[0] != "with whitespace" && args[0] != "no-whitespace" {
			return fmt.Errorf(`argument must be "with whitespace" or "no-whitespace"`)
		}
		return nil
	},
	SilenceUsage: true,
	ValidArgsFunction: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string, toComplete string) ([]string, cobra.ShellCompDirective) {
		return []string{"with whitespace", "no-whitespace"}, cobra.ShellCompDirectiveNoFileComp
	},
}

func init() {
	RootCmd.AddCommand(WhitespaceCmd)
}

func main() {
	if err := RootCmd.Execute(); err != nil {
		os.Exit(1)
	}
}

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marckhouzam · 2022-08-15T02:17:56Z

@scop, you may have some expertise on this. Do you have special handling if a completion has a space in it for bash?

scop · 2022-08-20T09:40:05Z

Hi @kangasta ;)

It's annoyingly difficult in bash.

A cheap generic way is to fake the completions to be filenames. That does take care of the escaping, but it's obviously semantically incorrect for completions that really aren't filenames. And it may have side effects.

Another one is to run the strings through printf %q ... here and there in the completion code. Some related discussion e.g. at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26509260/bash-tab-completion-with-spaces

Anyway I believe neither of these options is currently available for cobra users. I'll have a quick peek at PR #1743.

github-actions · 2022-10-20T00:15:08Z

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kangasta · 2022-10-27T11:00:22Z

Rebased related PR and added comment there as well: #1743

github-actions · 2022-12-28T00:08:20Z

The Cobra project currently lacks enough contributors to adequately respond to all issues. This bot triages issues and PRs according to the following rules:

After 60d of inactivity, lifecycle/stale is applied. - After 30d of inactivity since lifecycle/stale was applied, lifecycle/rotten is applied and the issue is closed.
You can:
Make a comment to remove the stale label and show your support. The 60 days reset. - If an issue has lifecycle/rotten and is closed, comment and ask maintainers if they'd be interested in reopening

kangasta · 2022-12-29T11:56:55Z

Adding a comment to keep this from being closed.

This requires removing whitespace from completions as cobras bash completions do not support values with whitespace (See spf13/cobra#1740). This is done by replacing whitespace with non-breaking spaces during completion generation. The argument resolvers with values that can include whitespace are also updated to handle both modified and original arguments, i.e. user can still input whitespaces normally when argument is quoted or escaped.

JeffFaer · 2024-02-28T15:38:32Z

I ran across this the other day. This isn't just limited to whitespace, but all characters that need escaping in bash. My completions were using >, which is kinda unfortunate because cobra started redirecting output to random places during completion

…haracters. Special characters include whitepace, so this is more general than spf13#1743. This should also fix spf13#1740. I added some test cases to cobra-completion-testing. This PR makes them pass. It also doesn't trip any of the performance regression tests. I'm happy to submit those tests as a PR as well. - https://github.com/JeffFaer/cobra-completion-testing/tree/special_characters - JeffFaer/cobra-completion-testing@52254c1

…haracters. Special characters include whitepace, so this is more general than spf13#1743. This should also fix spf13#1740. I added some test cases to cobra-completion-testing. This PR makes them pass. It also doesn't trip any of the performance regression tests. I'm happy to submit those tests as a PR as well. - https://github.com/JeffFaer/cobra-completion-testing/tree/special_characters - JeffFaer/cobra-completion-testing@52254c1 Signed-off-by: Jeffrey Faer <[email protected]>

marckhouzam added kind/bug A bug in cobra; unintended behavior area/shell-completion All shell completions labels Jun 21, 2022

This was referenced Jun 23, 2022

Add similar whitespace escape logic to bash v2 completions than in other completions #1743

Open

Refactor completions to use cobras default completion command UpCloudLtd/upcloud-cli#141

Closed

github-actions bot added the lifecycle/stale label Oct 20, 2022

github-actions bot removed the lifecycle/stale label Oct 28, 2022

github-actions bot added the lifecycle/stale label Dec 28, 2022

github-actions bot removed the lifecycle/stale label Dec 30, 2022

kangasta mentioned this issue Feb 1, 2023

feat(completion): use cobras default completion command UpCloudLtd/upcloud-cli#204

Merged

JeffFaer linked a pull request Mar 21, 2024 that will close this issue

fix(bash): Fix bash completion for suggestions that contain special characters. #2126

Open

kadinsayani mentioned this issue Oct 16, 2024

lxc storage volume copy completion issue canonical/lxd#14264

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Shell completions with whitespace seem to work differently on bash vs. other supported shells #1740

Shell completions with whitespace seem to work differently on bash vs. other supported shells #1740

kangasta commented Jun 21, 2022

marckhouzam commented Aug 15, 2022

scop commented Aug 20, 2022

github-actions bot commented Oct 20, 2022

kangasta commented Oct 27, 2022

github-actions bot commented Dec 28, 2022

kangasta commented Dec 29, 2022

JeffFaer commented Feb 28, 2024

Shell completions with whitespace seem to work differently on bash vs. other supported shells #1740

Shell completions with whitespace seem to work differently on bash vs. other supported shells #1740

Comments

kangasta commented Jun 21, 2022

marckhouzam commented Aug 15, 2022

scop commented Aug 20, 2022

github-actions bot commented Oct 20, 2022

kangasta commented Oct 27, 2022

github-actions bot commented Dec 28, 2022

kangasta commented Dec 29, 2022

JeffFaer commented Feb 28, 2024