argcomplete - Bash tab completion for argparse
Tab complete all the things!
Argcomplete provides easy, extensible command line tab completion of arguments for your Python script.
It makes two assumptions:
- You're using bash as your shell (limited support for zsh, fish, and tcsh is available)
- You're using argparse 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 (or if it reports an error).
Refresh your bash environment (start a new shell or source /etc/profile).
Synopsis
Python code (e.g. my-awesome-script):
#!/usr/bin/env python
# PYTHON_ARGCOMPLETE_OK
import argcomplete, argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
...
argcomplete.autocomplete(parser)
args = parser.parse_args()
...
Shellcode (only necessary if global completion is not activated - see Global completion below), to be put in e.g. .bashrc:
eval "$(register-python-argcomplete my-awesome-script)"
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.
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.
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: Theargparse.Actioninstance that this completer was called for.parser: Theargparse.ArgumentParserinstance that the action was taken by.parsed_args: The result of argument parsing so far (theargparse.Namespaceargs object normally returned byArgumentParser.parse_args()).
Completers should return their completions as a list of strings. An example completer for names of environment variables might look like this:
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:
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:
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:
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 uses parsed_args and Requests to query GitHub for publicly known members of an organization and complete their names, then prints the member description:
#!/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 like this:
./describe_github_user.py --organization heroku --member <TAB>
If you have a useful completer to add to the completer library, 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 bash 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:
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:
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():
def my_validator(current_input, keyword_to_check_against):
# Pass through ALL options even if they don't all start with 'current_input'
return True
argcomplete.autocomplete(parser, validator=my_validator)
Global completion
In global completion mode, you don't have to register each argcomplete-capable executable separately. Instead, bash 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>. This also works for alternate Python versions (e.g. python3 and pypy), as long as that version of Python has argcomplete installed.
Bash version compatibility
Global completion requires bash support for complete -D, which was introduced in bash 4.2. On OS X or older Linux systems, you will need to update bash to use this feature. Check the version of the running copy of bash with echo $BASH_VERSION. On OS X, install bash via Homebrew (brew install bash), add /usr/local/bin/bash to /etc/shells, and run chsh to change your shell.
Global completion is not currently compatible with zsh.
Note
If you use setuptools/distribute scripts or entry_points directives to package your module, argcomplete will follow the wrapper scripts to their destination and look for PYTHON_ARGCOMPLETE_OK in the destination code.
If you choose not to use global completion, or ship a bash completion module that depends on argcomplete, you must register your script explicitly using eval "$(register-python-argcomplete my-awesome-script)". Standard bash completion registration roules 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-awesome-script 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-awesome-script, or /path/to/my-awesome-script.
Activating global completion
The script activate-global-python-argcomplete will try to install the file bash_completion.d/python-argcomplete (see on GitHub) into an appropriate location on your system (/etc/bash_completion.d/ or ~/.bash_completion.d/). If it fails, but you know the correct location of your bash completion scripts directory, you can specify it with --dest:
activate-global-python-argcomplete --dest=/path/to/bash_completion.d
Otherwise, you can redirect its shellcode output into a file:
activate-global-python-argcomplete --dest=- > file
The file's contents should then be sourced in e.g. ~/.bashrc.
Zsh Support
To activate completions for zsh you need to have bashcompinit enabled in zsh:
autoload -U bashcompinit bashcompinit
Afterwards you can enable completion for your scripts with register-python-argcomplete:
eval "$(register-python-argcomplete my-awesome-script)"
Tcsh Support
To activate completions for tcsh use:
eval `register-python-argcomplete --shell tcsh my-awesome-script`
The python-argcomplete-tcsh script provides completions for tcsh. The following is an example of the tcsh completion syntax for my-awesome-script emitted by register-python-argcomplete:
complete my-awesome-script 'p@*@`python-argcomplete-tcsh my-awesome-script`@'
Fish Support
To activate completions for fish use:
register-python-argcomplete --shell fish my-awesome-script | source
or create new completion file, e.g:
register-python-argcomplete --shell fish my-awesome-script > ~/.config/fish/completions/my-awesome-script.fish
Completion Description For Fish
By default help string is added as completion description.
You can disable this feature by removing _ARGCOMPLETE_DFS variable, e.g:
register-python-argcomplete --shell fish my-awesome-script | grep -v _ARGCOMPLETE_DFS | .
Git Bash Support
Due to limitations of file descriptor inheritance on Windows, Git Bash not supported out of the box. You can opt in to using temporary files instead of file descriptors for for IPC by setting the environment variable ARGCOMPLETE_USE_TEMPFILES, e.g. by adding export ARGCOMPLETE_USE_TEMPFILES=1 to ~/.bashrc.
For full support, consider using Bash with the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
External argcomplete script
To register an argcomplete script for an arbitrary name, the --external-argcomplete-script argument of the register-python-argcomplete script can be used:
eval "$(register-python-argcomplete --external-argcomplete-script /path/to/script arbitrary-name)"
This allows, for example, to use the auto completion functionality of argcomplete for an application not written in Python. The command line interface of this program must be additionally implemented in a Python script with argparse and argcomplete and whenever the application is called the registered external argcomplete script is used for auto completion.
This option can also be used in combination with the other supported shells.
Python Support
Argcomplete requires Python 2.7 or 3.5+.
Common Problems
If global completion is not completing your script, bash may have registered a default completion function:
$ complete | grep my-awesome-script complete -F _minimal my-awesome-script
You can fix this by restarting your shell, or by running complete -r my-awesome-script.
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.
Links
- Project home page (GitHub)
- Documentation
- Package distribution (PyPI)
- Change log
- xontrib-argcomplete - support argcomplete in xonsh shell
Bugs
Please report bugs, issues, feature requests, etc. on GitHub.
License
Licensed under the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0.
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