The Bash shell has this sweet feature where you can use the TAB key to auto-complete certain things. For example, when I am in my home directory, the following command:
$cd Do[TAB-key]
will automatically yield:
$cd Documents
Though you can use the TAB key to complete the names of files and directories, by default the completion is pretty “dumb”. If you have already typed$cd Dyou would expect that the tab key would cause only the directory names to be completed, but if I try it on my machine, the tab completion tool uses filenames too.
To enable smart completion, edit your/etc/bash.bashrcfile. Uncomment the following lines, by removing the # in the beginning of the lines:
#if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ]; then
# . /etc/bash_completion
#fi
Now you can use tab completion to power your way through commands.
You can even extend bash smart completion to your own favourite commands by using /etc/bash_completion, the “complete” utility and /etc/bash_completion.d . Explaining the nitty-gritty is beyond me. I refer you to the Debian Administration gurus for more information regarding smarter bash completion. via EmbraceUbuntu