bash_completion fails to find function

Question

I wrote a program (logit) that sets up logging and execs what ever follows it on the command line. That all works fine.

I want to be able to do command completion, sudo works like logit, so being lazy, I do this in my .bashrc:

complete -F _sudo logit

When it works, it does what I need, but I can't use completion for logit until after I use it for sudo.

wwalker@polonium:~$ type _sudo
-bash: type: _sudo: not found                                                 
wwalker@polonium:~$ logit cal-bash: completion: function `_sudo' not found
wwalker@polonium:~$ logit cal-bash: completion: function `_sudo' not found
wwalker@polonium:~$ sudo cal                                                  
cal                 caller              callgrind_annotate  callgrind_control    
wwalker@polonium:~$ type _sudo                                                
_sudo is a function            
_sudo ()           
{          
....
wwalker@polonium:~$ logit cal
cal                 caller              callgrind_annotate  callgrind_control   
wwalker@polonium:~$ logit cal

Anyone got any idea how _sudo magically appears?

Thanks Wayne

Edit: I found out that something triggers lazy loading of /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/sudo when I try to autocomplete a sudo command. Looking at set -x when doing the autocomplete, I see that it calls __load_completion sudo.

So I have a workaround that I have put in my .bashrc:

__load_completion sudo
complete -F _sudo logit

Edit 2:

wwalker@polonium:~$ ls -li /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/sudo*
3017247 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1306 2017-09-22 00:25:24.000 /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/sudo
3017249 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    4 2019-01-31 08:28:33.000 /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/sudoedit -> sudo

so to cheat the way I was going to, I could do this:

ln -s /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/sudo /home/wwalker/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/logit

and edit the last line to :

complete -F _sudo sudo sudoedit logit

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 14 '19 at 08:05

My attempt at a lazy solution was the problem. While working through creating a good question with the needed detail, I ended up seeing my errors and...

The right way to do it is to:

cp /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/sudo /home/wwalker/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/logit

Then edit the new logit file and make it custom to my program. Pretty much change the function name and the other references from sudo to logit.

bash_completion fails to find function

1 Answers1