1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
|
Metadata-Version: 2.1
Name: argcomplete
Version: 3.1.2
Summary: Bash tab completion for argparse
Home-page: https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete
Author: Andrey Kislyuk
Author-email: kislyuk@gmail.com
License: Apache Software License
Project-URL: Documentation, https://kislyuk.github.io/argcomplete
Project-URL: Source Code, https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete
Project-URL: Issue Tracker, https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete/issues
Project-URL: Change Log, https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete/blob/master/Changes.rst
Platform: MacOS X
Platform: Posix
Classifier: Environment :: Console
Classifier: Intended Audience :: Developers
Classifier: License :: OSI Approved :: Apache Software License
Classifier: Operating System :: MacOS :: MacOS X
Classifier: Operating System :: POSIX
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.7
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: Implementation :: CPython
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: Implementation :: PyPy
Classifier: Development Status :: 5 - Production/Stable
Classifier: Topic :: Software Development
Classifier: Topic :: Software Development :: Libraries :: Python Modules
Classifier: Topic :: System :: Shells
Classifier: Topic :: Terminals
Requires-Python: >=3.6
Description-Content-Type: text/x-rst
License-File: LICENSE.rst
License-File: NOTICE
Requires-Dist: importlib-metadata <7,>=0.23 ; python_version < "3.8"
Provides-Extra: test
Requires-Dist: coverage ; extra == 'test'
Requires-Dist: pexpect ; extra == 'test'
Requires-Dist: wheel ; extra == 'test'
Requires-Dist: ruff ; extra == 'test'
Requires-Dist: mypy ; extra == 'test'
argcomplete - Bash/zsh tab completion for argparse
==================================================
*Tab complete all the things!*
Argcomplete provides easy, extensible command line tab completion of arguments for your Python application.
It makes two assumptions:
* You're using bash or zsh as your shell
* You're using `argparse <http://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html>`_ to manage your command line arguments/options
Argcomplete is particularly useful if your program has lots of options or subparsers, and if your program can
dynamically suggest completions for your argument/option values (for example, if the user is browsing resources over
the network).
Installation
------------
::
pip install argcomplete
activate-global-python-argcomplete
See `Activating global completion`_ below for details about the second step.
Refresh your shell environment (start a new shell).
Synopsis
--------
Add the ``PYTHON_ARGCOMPLETE_OK`` marker and a call to ``argcomplete.autocomplete()`` to your Python application as
follows:
.. code-block:: python
#!/usr/bin/env python
# PYTHON_ARGCOMPLETE_OK
import argcomplete, argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
...
argcomplete.autocomplete(parser)
args = parser.parse_args()
...
Register your Python application with your shell's completion framework by running ``register-python-argcomplete``::
eval "$(register-python-argcomplete my-python-app)"
Quotes are significant; the registration will fail without them. See `Global completion`_ below for a way to enable
argcomplete generally without registering each application individually.
argcomplete.autocomplete(*parser*)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This method is the entry point to the module. It must be called **after** ArgumentParser construction is complete, but
**before** the ``ArgumentParser.parse_args()`` method is called. The method looks for an environment variable that the
completion hook shellcode sets, and if it's there, collects completions, prints them to the output stream (fd 8 by
default), and exits. Otherwise, it returns to the caller immediately.
.. admonition:: Side effects
Argcomplete gets completions by running your program. It intercepts the execution flow at the moment
``argcomplete.autocomplete()`` is called. After sending completions, it exits using ``exit_method`` (``os._exit``
by default). This means if your program has any side effects that happen before ``argcomplete`` is called, those
side effects will happen every time the user presses ``<TAB>`` (although anything your program prints to stdout or
stderr will be suppressed). For this reason it's best to construct the argument parser and call
``argcomplete.autocomplete()`` as early as possible in your execution flow.
.. admonition:: Performance
If the program takes a long time to get to the point where ``argcomplete.autocomplete()`` is called, the tab completion
process will feel sluggish, and the user may lose confidence in it. So it's also important to minimize the startup time
of the program up to that point (for example, by deferring initialization or importing of large modules until after
parsing options).
Specifying completers
---------------------
You can specify custom completion functions for your options and arguments. Two styles are supported: callable and
readline-style. Callable completers are simpler. They are called with the following keyword arguments:
* ``prefix``: The prefix text of the last word before the cursor on the command line.
For dynamic completers, this can be used to reduce the work required to generate possible completions.
* ``action``: The ``argparse.Action`` instance that this completer was called for.
* ``parser``: The ``argparse.ArgumentParser`` instance that the action was taken by.
* ``parsed_args``: The result of argument parsing so far (the ``argparse.Namespace`` args object normally returned by
``ArgumentParser.parse_args()``).
Completers can return their completions as an iterable of strings or a mapping (dict) of strings to their
descriptions (zsh will display the descriptions as context help alongside completions). An example completer for names
of environment variables might look like this:
.. code-block:: python
def EnvironCompleter(**kwargs):
return os.environ
To specify a completer for an argument or option, set the ``completer`` attribute of its associated action. An easy
way to do this at definition time is:
.. code-block:: python
from argcomplete.completers import EnvironCompleter
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("--env-var1").completer = EnvironCompleter
parser.add_argument("--env-var2").completer = EnvironCompleter
argcomplete.autocomplete(parser)
If you specify the ``choices`` keyword for an argparse option or argument (and don't specify a completer), it will be
used for completions.
A completer that is initialized with a set of all possible choices of values for its action might look like this:
.. code-block:: python
class ChoicesCompleter(object):
def __init__(self, choices):
self.choices = choices
def __call__(self, **kwargs):
return self.choices
The following two ways to specify a static set of choices are equivalent for completion purposes:
.. code-block:: python
from argcomplete.completers import ChoicesCompleter
parser.add_argument("--protocol", choices=('http', 'https', 'ssh', 'rsync', 'wss'))
parser.add_argument("--proto").completer=ChoicesCompleter(('http', 'https', 'ssh', 'rsync', 'wss'))
Note that if you use the ``choices=<completions>`` option, argparse will show
all these choices in the ``--help`` output by default. To prevent this, set
``metavar`` (like ``parser.add_argument("--protocol", metavar="PROTOCOL",
choices=('http', 'https', 'ssh', 'rsync', 'wss'))``).
The following `script <https://raw.github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete/master/docs/examples/describe_github_user.py>`_ uses
``parsed_args`` and `Requests <http://python-requests.org/>`_ to query GitHub for publicly known members of an
organization and complete their names, then prints the member description:
.. code-block:: python
#!/usr/bin/env python
# PYTHON_ARGCOMPLETE_OK
import argcomplete, argparse, requests, pprint
def github_org_members(prefix, parsed_args, **kwargs):
resource = "https://api.github.com/orgs/{org}/members".format(org=parsed_args.organization)
return (member['login'] for member in requests.get(resource).json() if member['login'].startswith(prefix))
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("--organization", help="GitHub organization")
parser.add_argument("--member", help="GitHub member").completer = github_org_members
argcomplete.autocomplete(parser)
args = parser.parse_args()
pprint.pprint(requests.get("https://api.github.com/users/{m}".format(m=args.member)).json())
`Try it <https://raw.github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete/master/docs/examples/describe_github_user.py>`_ like this::
./describe_github_user.py --organization heroku --member <TAB>
If you have a useful completer to add to the `completer library
<https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete/blob/master/argcomplete/completers.py>`_, send a pull request!
Readline-style completers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The readline_ module defines a completer protocol in rlcompleter_. Readline-style completers are also supported by
argcomplete, so you can use the same completer object both in an interactive readline-powered shell and on the command
line. For example, you can use the readline-style completer provided by IPython_ to get introspective completions like
you would get in the IPython shell:
.. _readline: http://docs.python.org/3/library/readline.html
.. _rlcompleter: http://docs.python.org/3/library/rlcompleter.html#completer-objects
.. _IPython: http://ipython.org/
.. code-block:: python
import IPython
parser.add_argument("--python-name").completer = IPython.core.completer.Completer()
``argcomplete.CompletionFinder.rl_complete`` can also be used to plug in an argparse parser as a readline completer.
Printing warnings in completers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Normal stdout/stderr output is suspended when argcomplete runs. Sometimes, though, when the user presses ``<TAB>``, it's
appropriate to print information about why completions generation failed. To do this, use ``warn``:
.. code-block:: python
from argcomplete import warn
def AwesomeWebServiceCompleter(prefix, **kwargs):
if login_failed:
warn("Please log in to Awesome Web Service to use autocompletion")
return completions
Using a custom completion validator
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By default, argcomplete validates your completions by checking if they start with the prefix given to the completer. You
can override this validation check by supplying the ``validator`` keyword to ``argcomplete.autocomplete()``:
.. code-block:: python
def my_validator(completion_candidate, current_input):
"""Complete non-prefix substring matches."""
return current_input in completion_candidate
argcomplete.autocomplete(parser, validator=my_validator)
Global completion
-----------------
In global completion mode, you don't have to register each argcomplete-capable executable separately. Instead, the shell
will look for the string **PYTHON_ARGCOMPLETE_OK** in the first 1024 bytes of any executable that it's running
completion for, and if it's found, follow the rest of the argcomplete protocol as described above.
Additionally, completion is activated for scripts run as ``python <script>`` and ``python -m <module>``. If you're using
multiple Python versions on the same system, the version being used to run the script must have argcomplete installed.
.. admonition:: Bash version compatibility
When using bash, global completion requires bash support for ``complete -D``, which was introduced in bash 4.2. Since
Mac OS ships with an outdated version of Bash (3.2), you can either use zsh or install a newer version of bash using
`Homebrew <http://brew.sh/>`_ (``brew install bash`` - you will also need to add ``/usr/local/bin/bash`` to
``/etc/shells``, and run ``chsh`` to change your shell). You can check the version of the running copy of bash with
``echo $BASH_VERSION``.
.. note:: If you use setuptools/distribute ``scripts`` or ``entry_points`` directives to package your module,
argcomplete will follow the wrapper scripts to their destination and look for ``PYTHON_ARGCOMPLETE_OK`` in the
destination code.
If you choose not to use global completion, or ship a completion module that depends on argcomplete, you must register
your script explicitly using ``eval "$(register-python-argcomplete my-python-app)"``. Standard completion module
registration rules apply: namely, the script name is passed directly to ``complete``, meaning it is only tab completed
when invoked exactly as it was registered. In the above example, ``my-python-app`` must be on the path, and the user
must be attempting to complete it by that name. The above line alone would **not** allow you to complete
``./my-python-app``, or ``/path/to/my-python-app``.
Activating global completion
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The script ``activate-global-python-argcomplete`` installs the global completion script
`bash_completion.d/_python-argcomplete <https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete/blob/master/argcomplete/bash_completion.d/_python-argcomplete>`_
into an appropriate location on your system for both bash and zsh. The specific location depends on your platform and
whether you installed argcomplete system-wide using ``sudo`` or locally (into your user's home directory).
Zsh Support
-----------
Argcomplete supports zsh. On top of plain completions like in bash, zsh allows you to see argparse help strings as
completion descriptions. All shellcode included with argcomplete is compatible with both bash and zsh, so the same
completer commands ``activate-global-python-argcomplete`` and ``eval "$(register-python-argcomplete my-python-app)"``
work for zsh as well.
Python Support
--------------
Argcomplete requires Python 3.7+.
Support for other shells
------------------------
Argcomplete maintainers provide support only for the bash and zsh shells on Linux and MacOS. For resources related to
other shells and platforms, including fish, tcsh, xonsh, powershell, and Windows, please see the
`contrib <https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete/tree/develop/contrib>`_ directory.
Common Problems
---------------
If global completion is not completing your script, bash may have registered a default completion function::
$ complete | grep my-python-app
complete -F _minimal my-python-app
You can fix this by restarting your shell, or by running ``complete -r my-python-app``.
Debugging
---------
Set the ``_ARC_DEBUG`` variable in your shell to enable verbose debug output every time argcomplete runs. This will
disrupt the command line composition state of your terminal, but make it possible to see the internal state of the
completer if it encounters problems.
Acknowledgments
---------------
Inspired and informed by the optcomplete_ module by Martin Blais.
.. _optcomplete: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/optcomplete
Links
-----
* `Project home page (GitHub) <https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete>`_
* `Documentation <https://kislyuk.github.io/argcomplete/>`_
* `Package distribution (PyPI) <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/argcomplete>`_
* `Change log <https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete/blob/master/Changes.rst>`_
Bugs
~~~~
Please report bugs, issues, feature requests, etc. on `GitHub <https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete/issues>`_.
License
-------
Copyright 2012-2023, Andrey Kislyuk and argcomplete contributors. Licensed under the terms of the
`Apache License, Version 2.0 <http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0>`_. Distribution of the LICENSE and NOTICE
files with source copies of this package and derivative works is **REQUIRED** as specified by the Apache License.
.. image:: https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete/workflows/Python%20package/badge.svg
:target: https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete/actions
.. image:: https://codecov.io/github/kislyuk/argcomplete/coverage.svg?branch=master
:target: https://codecov.io/github/kislyuk/argcomplete?branch=master
.. image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/argcomplete.svg
:target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/argcomplete
.. image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/l/argcomplete.svg
:target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/argcomplete
|