content/projects/hgtab.html @ 2757662f1404

{% extends "_post.html" %}

{% hyde
    title: "hgtab"
    snip: "Smarter tab completion for Mercurial in bash."
    created: 2009-03-10 20:22:44
    categories: ["programming"]
    exclude: True
%}

{% block article %}

hgtab was created to provide smarter tab completion for Mercurial in bash.

**UPDATE**: Apparently there's already [tab completion in
Mercurial](http://www.selenic.com/hg/file/11efa41037e2/contrib/bash_completion)!
It's way better than this, *use that*! It should probably be better documented
though – I posted this yesterday and it's already the top four results
for "mercurial tab completion" on Google...

If I've missed something you'd really like tab completed, post an issue on the
issue tracker and I'll do my best to implement it. My bash scripting skills
are almost non-existent, so if you improve this (or port it to another shell)
feel free to send a pull request!

You can download hgtab from its [BitBucket
repository](http://source.stevelosh.com/hgtab/).

## Installing

All you need to do to use hgtab is source it. There are three ways to do this,
ranging from easy and ugly to slightly less easy and more elegant.

### OPTION 1: Easy, Ugly

Copy the contents of `hgtab-bash.sh` into your `~/.bashrc` file.

### OPTION 2: Harder, Less Ugly

Download `hgtab-bash.sh` and place the following line somewhere in your
`~/.bashrc` file:

    :::bash
    source ~/path/to/hgtab/hgtab-bash.sh

### OPTION 3: Hardest, Elegant

Clone this repository somewhere with this command:

    :::text
    hg clone http://bitbucket.org/sjl/hgtab/

Add the following line to your `~/.bashrc` file:

    :::bash
    source ~/path/to/hgtab/hgtab-bash.sh

If you use this method you can update the file by pulling down the changes
from this repository:

    :::text
    cd ~/path/to/hgtab
    hg pull

## Using

Once hgtab is sourced it'll add some nifty tab completion features in your
shell. For example, you can tab complete Mercurial commands:

    :::console
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg re<tab(s)>
    recover  remove   rename   resolve  revert
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg re

When you're using a command that wants a revision as a parameter, hitting tab
will complete on tags (and bookmarks) and branches.

    :::console
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg branches
    blue                          20:f05ca6eb51a1
    red                           16:8262f0345f41 (inactive)
    default                       15:67f959b8deb8 (inactive)
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg book
     * dev-1.0                   20:f05ca6eb51a1
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg tags
    tip                               20:f05ca6eb51a1
    dev-1.0                           20:f05ca6eb51a1
    beta                              18:f3ab9bf730f7
    alpha                             17:ca802019f04f
    
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg update <tab(s)>
    alpha    beta     blue     default  dev-1.0  red      tip
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg update b<tab(s)>
    beta  blue  
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg update b
    
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg diff -r b<tab(s)>
    beta  blue  
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg diff -r b

It will also complete remote paths when you're pushing or pulling.

    :::console
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg paths
    alice-dev = http://alice-dev
    alice-stable = http://alice-stable
    bob = http://bob
    default = ssh://hg@bitbucket.org/sjl/hgtag/
    
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg push <tab(s)>
    alice-dev     alice-stable  bob           default
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg push
    
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg pull alice-<tab(s)>
    alice-dev     alice-stable  
    sjl at grendel in test $  hg pull alice-

Enjoy!

{% endblock %}