How to reset COMP_WORDBREAKS without affecting other completion script?

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Modifying $COMP_WORDBREAKS in your completion script is not the recommended way (as it is a global variable and it could affect the behavior of other completion scripts – for example ssh).

However, bash completion offers some helper methods which you can use to achieve your goal.

The recommended way to handle non-word-breaking characters in completion words is by using the two helper methods:

  • _get_comp_words_by_ref with the -n EXCLUDE option
    • gets the word-to-complete without considering the characters in EXCLUDE as word breaks
  • __ltrim_colon_completions

So, here is a basic example of how to a handle a colon (:) in completion words:

_mytool()
{
    local cur
    _get_comp_words_by_ref -n : cur

    # my implementation here

    COMPREPLY=( $(compgen ..........my_implement......... -- $cur) )

    __ltrim_colon_completions "$cur"
}
complete -F _mytool mytool

As a final tip, the helper methods are located in /etc/bash_completion. Take a look inside to read a detailed description of each method and to discover more helper methods.

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