BASH file name completion

Question

In BASH I can normally start typing a file name, then type TAB and it will give me some suggestions.

I have a list of files that look like this:

20130519114000_add_hstore.rb
20130615125517_create_sites.rb
20130616112833_create_delayed_jobs.rb
....

Is there a way I could type something like "*delayed" and then TAB (or something) to find "20130616112833_create_delayed_jobs.rb".

At the moment, sifting through those numbers at the start of the filenames is too much cognitive load :)

did you try using something like ls | grep delayed or ls *delayed*? — mvp
– mvp, Commented Jun 17, 2013 at 4:02
Excellent, had not tried *delayed* - this works very well thanks :) — user537339
– user537339, Commented Jun 17, 2013 at 4:06
Make a reply and I will mark it as the solution, if you like — user537339
– user537339, Commented Jun 17, 2013 at 4:06

ruakh · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-17 04:07:11Z

2

Yes. The details can vary depending on your keyboard, and your Readline command bindings, and how you're logged into the system, and so on, but typically you can do this by typing *delayed, and then hitting Alt+g instead of TAB. (Search for glob-complete-word in §8.4.8 "Some Miscellaneous [Readline] Commands" in The Bash Reference Manual.)

answered Jun 17, 2013 at 4:07

ruakh

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devnull Over a year ago

+1. BTW, on some terminals prefix-meta (ESC) works well if Alt cannot be used.

mvp · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-17 04:28:00Z

1

You can use either:

ls *delayed*

or

ls | grep delayed

to filter list of files to what you want.

answered Jun 17, 2013 at 4:28

mvp

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