home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- bash completion needs to be rewritten from the ground up.
- ---------------------------------------------------------
-
- bash completion really needs to be rewritten from the ground up, using all of
- the features available in bash 3.1 and without regard for compatibility with
- the 2.x line.
-
- At that time, it should be split into multiple files for easier source
- management. Whether or not it is actually installed on the destination
- computer as separate files is a matter for future debate.
-
- If it were installed as tens or even hundreds of files, each of which had to
- be opened to decide whether it should be sourced in its entirety, that could
- prove very expensive on some systems.
-
- Alternatively, a master file could decide which of the individual completion
- files should be sourced. In that way, we wouldn't need to open extra files
- just to ascertain that the commands for those functions aren't on the system,
- anyway.
-
- A further alternative is that a build process be created, which would
- concatenate the various files into a single completion file, similar to what
- we have now. This option is my least favourite, because a system with a lot of
- packages installed currently has to deal with sourcing over 200 kB of bash
- code for each invocation of an interactive shell.
-
- An even better alternative would be if bash supported dynamic loading of shell
- functions (in the manner of zsh), but I don't believe there are any plans to
- add this feature.
-
- --
- Ian Macdonald
- Amsterdam, March 2006
-