created: 20160218090232299
creator: user
modified: 20160218091006268
modifier: user
tags: 
title: Bash insensitive case completion
type: text/vnd.tiddlywiki

http://superuser.com/questions/90196/case-insensitive-tab-completion-in-bash

Note: Command-line editing in Bash is provided by the Readline library; customizing it is non-trivial, but well worth learning; its features include the ability to define custom keyboard shortcuts for inserting predefined snippets of text - see Command Line Editing in the Bash Reference Manual (http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Command-Line-Editing.html#Command-Line-Editing)

To persistently make tab-completion case-insensitive in Bash:

---

Option A: If you either already have:

* an `/etc/inputrc` file (applies system-wide, modification requires `sudo`)
* and/or a `~/.inputrc` file (user-specific)

and/or

you're planning to customize the readline library extensively and/or want to make customizations effective for scripts too when they call `read -e`:

Add line

```
set completion-ignore-case on
```

to either file, depending on whether you want the setting to be effective for all users or the current user (create the file, if necessary).

A related command that makes completion of file and directory names easier is:

```
set show-all-if-ambiguous on
```

This makes it unnecessary to press Tab twice when there is more than one match.

---

Option B: Alternatively, you may add Readline commands to your user-specific `~/.bash_profile` file on OS X (or `~/.bashrc` on Linux), by passing them as a single argument to the bind builtin:

```
bind "set completion-ignore-case on"
bind "set show-all-if-ambiguous on"
```
Note that bind commands in `~/.bash_profile` / `~/.bashrc` take precedence over equivalent commands in either `/etc/inputrc` or `~/.inputrc`.

As implied above, Readline configuration defined this way will not take effect in scripts that call `read -e` to activate Readline support for reading user input.