Project: shtab

Automagic shell tab completion for Python CLI applications

Project Details

Latest version
1.6.5
Home Page
PyPI Page
https://pypi.org/project/shtab/

Project Popularity

PageRank
0.003537864259216508
Number of downloads
1173245

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shtab

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  • What: Automatically generate shell tab completion scripts for Python CLI apps
  • Why: Speed & correctness. Alternatives like argcomplete <https://pypi.org/project/argcomplete>_ and pyzshcomplete <https://pypi.org/project/pyzshcomplete>_ are slow and have side-effects
  • How: shtab processes an argparse.ArgumentParser object to generate a tab completion script for your shell

Features

  • Outputs tab completion scripts for

    • bash
    • zsh
    • tcsh
  • Supports

    • argparse <https://docs.python.org/library/argparse>_
    • docopt <https://pypi.org/project/docopt>_ (via argopt <https://pypi.org/project/argopt>_)
  • Supports arguments, options and subparsers

  • Supports choices (e.g. --say={hello,goodbye})

  • Supports file and directory path completion

  • Supports custom path completion (e.g. --file={*.txt})


.. contents:: Table of Contents :backlinks: top

Installation

Choose one of:

  • pip install shtab, or
  • conda install -c conda-forge shtab

See operating system-specific instructions in the docs <https://docs.iterative.ai/shtab/#installation>_.

Usage

There are two ways of using shtab:

  • CLI Usage <https://docs.iterative.ai/shtab/use/#cli-usage>_: shtab's own CLI interface for external applications

    • may not require any code modifications whatsoever
    • end-users execute shtab your_cli_app.your_parser_object
  • Library Usage <https://docs.iterative.ai/shtab/use/#library-usage>_: as a library integrated into your CLI application

    • adds a couple of lines to your application
    • argument mode: end-users execute your_cli_app --print-completion {bash,zsh,tcsh}
    • subparser mode: end-users execute your_cli_app completion {bash,zsh,tcsh}

Examples

See the docs for usage examples <https://docs.iterative.ai/shtab/use/#main.py>_.

FAQs

Not working? Check out frequently asked questions <https://docs.iterative.ai/shtab/#faqs>_.

Alternatives

  • argcomplete <https://pypi.org/project/argcomplete>_

    • executes the underlying script every time <TAB> is pressed (slow and has side-effects)
    • only provides bash completion
  • pyzshcomplete <https://pypi.org/project/pyzshcomplete>_

    • executes the underlying script every time <TAB> is pressed (slow and has side-effects)
    • only provides zsh completion
  • click <https://pypi.org/project/click>_

    • different framework completely replacing the builtin argparse
    • solves multiple problems (rather than POSIX-style "do one thing well")

Contributions

Please do open issues <https://github.com/iterative/shtab/issues>_ & pull requests <https://github.com/iterative/shtab/pulls>_! Some ideas:

  • support fish
  • support powershell

See CONTRIBUTING.md <https://github.com/iterative/shtab/tree/main/CONTRIBUTING.md>_ for more guidance.

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