Nieminen Mika wrote in message <369e340b.0@news.povray.org>...
>Johannes Hubert <jhu### [at] algonetse> wrote:
>:>  And anyways, you don't have to guess anything if you have a proper
shell
>:>which supports file name completion
>: [snip]
>
>: That would have to be a *very* intelligent completion. Figure this:
>
>: Two filenames "    abc.txt", "   bcd.txt" (both have 3 leading spaces).
>: With a proportional font you can see that there are *some* leading spaces
>: but not how many. So you would have to guess, and completion won't help
you
>: either. Or am I missing some magic feature of completion?
>
>  No problem:
>  (pressing tab for file name completion is indicated as <tab>)
>
>talitiainen:~/temp>touch "    abc.txt"
>talitiainen:~/temp>ls \ <tab>
>talitiainen:~/temp>ls \ \ \ \ abc.txt
>    abc.txt

I think you missed my point: I wrote that there are *two* files, called "
abc.txt" and "   bcd.txt".
So when you enter

talitiainen:~/temp>ls \ <tab>

the shell would have to guess which one you mean. As I understand
completion, nothing happens when you press <tab> as long as it is not clear
from the uncomplete part, which of several possible options is meant. As
long as it is not clear you need to enter further charaters, until you
entered a "startstring" that is unique. Then you can press <tab> for
completion. Well, and this unique startstring would be hard to guess since
both filenames start with 3 spaces, but you only know *that* they start with
spaces, not with how many... (Note my other condition: Usage of a
proportinal font, which would make "counting" spaces hard.)

Johannes.

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