Change to Custom Directory Alias With Completions in Zsh (2021)

6 points by Aks

telemachus

Maybe I’m confused, but I think you can do this more easily. You don’t need a function to bookmark directories. Instead, you can use CDPATH or even better hash -d which gives you TAB-completion for free.

~ % hash -d dots=Documents/git-repos/dotfiles
~ % nvim ~dots/[TAB]
base16.yml              gitignore_global        pack-vim.sh*
bash_aliases            go-extras/              port.awk
bash_completion         go-kickstart.sh*        profile
bash_functions          home-setup.sh           README.md
bash_path               hushlogin               run-help-debian
bashrc                  inputrc                 run-help-macos
bin/                    IR_Black_Mine.terminal  stylua.toml
bin-linker.sh*          launchagents/           test-run-help.zsh
config/                 LICENSE.txt             TODO.md
dot_copier.sh*          macOS.sh*               vim/
dot_linker.sh*          mail-skel.sh            Vim-big.terminal
drive.icns              mpdconf                 Vim-small.terminal
etc_bashrc              nvim-kickstart.bash*    Vim.terminal
etc_profile             nvim-link.sh*           zshenv
foo/                    old-zshrc               zshrc
gitconfig               pack-nvim.sh*

dst

zsh even lets you define a hook to generate these bookmarks on the fly ( see Dynamic Named Directories in zshexpn(1)).

There’s a lot cool things you can do with this.

My favorite is a bookmark ~[git] that resolves to the root of the repository I’m in. I use this so much that it stopped me from switching to fish because I couldn’t figure out an equivalent that worked as well.
- telemachus
  I’m curious about your code for the ~[git] bookmark and also about why you find it so valuable. Here’s what I came up with.
  
  zsh_directory_name() { emulate -L zsh if [[ $1 = n ]] && [[ $2 = git ]]; then local git_root git_root=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null) if [[ -n $git_root ]]; then typeset -ga reply reply=("$git_root") return 0 fi fi return 1 }
  
  This gives me cd ~[git] to go to the root of a git repo and nvim ~[git]/<Tab> to quickly get tab completion for files in the root of the repo from any depth. (I’m ignoring the c and d options because I don’t currently have a use for them.)
  
  In any case, I wonder how you define the function and how you use it.
- Aks
  
  I’d also like to know how you set up your ~[git] bookmark, I’m very new to ZSH.
- telemachus
  
  I didn’t know about dynamic named directories. Thanks. (zsh reminds me a lot of vim/neovim: there’s always more to learn.)
Aks

My “problem” with that was that I did not want to type ~ first.

But it’s still great tip.
- telemachus
  
  My “problem” with that was that I did not want to type ~ first.
  
  Fair enough. I can see how that is annoying. CDPATH does not require you to type ~, and I believe that it gives you tab completion for free (or freely with zsh’s existing completion). An advantage of hash -d for me is that I get tab completion for all commands rather than just for cd, which is what CDPATH gives me. For that, I’m willing to type ~, but I completely understand if you prefer another method.
Aks

Found this super useful for my usecase, so wanted to share this post for anyone else needing similar functions.

Curious if people have any other helper zsh/bash/fish functions here!
hwj
You could probably also use

cd d/g/d

to go into Documents/git-repos/dotfiles using a custom matcher-list:
```
autoload -Uz compinit
compinit
zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list \
	'' \
	'm:{a-z\-}={A-Z\_}' \
	'r:[^[:alpha:]]||[[:alpha:]]=** r:|=* m:{a-z\-}={A-Z\_}' \
	'r:|?=** m:{a-z\-}={A-Z\_}'
```
Explanation of each line:
- vanilla completion (abc => abc)
- smart case completion (abc => Abc)
- word flex completion (abc => A-big-Car)
- full flex completion (abc => ABraCadabra)
Source: I think this is from StackOverflow when it was good back in the days ;-)