Bash completion for the defaultbrowser tool for MacOS

The completion implementation requires defaultbrowser to be installed (of course), Tt uses the defaultbrowser built-in feature of listing all available browsers by not providing as$ argument.

$ defaultbrowser
  iterm2
* chrome
  firefoxdeveloperedition
  safari
  vlc
  evernote
  netnewswire

$ defaultbrowser <tab><tab>
chrome                   iterm2                   vlc
evernote                 netnewswire
firefoxdeveloperedition  safari

$ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jonasbn/bash_completion_defaultbrowser/master/defaultbrowser > defaultbrowser

When downloaded you have to install the completion implementation. Where your completions are located might vary.

If you want to install them for your personal use, do the following.

Create the file: ~/.bash_completion, containing the code below:

for bcfile in ~/.bash_completion.d/* ; do
  . $bcfile
done

Ref: ServerFault.com: Standard place for user defined bash_completion.d scripts?

Create a directory for your completions:

$ mkdir ~/.bash_completion.d

Copy your completions into the newly created directory:

$ cp defaultbrowser ~/.bash_completion.d/

Start a new shell and you should be good to go.

Based on an introduction to bash completions on Debian.

$ sudo cp defaultbrowser /etc/bash_completion.d/

This assumes you are using Homebrew

Do note that paths vary based on whether you are using bash 3 or 4

Formula: bash-completions.

$ cp defaultbrowser /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/

And to activate right away:

$ source  /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/defaultbrowser

Formula: bash-completions2.

$ cp defaultbrowser /usr/local/share/bash-completion/completions/

And to activate right away:

$ source /usr/local/share/bash-completion/completions/defaultbrowser

I just discovered defaultbrowser today, since I needed a tool, which does exactly THAT - with this tab completion, it is even easier to use.

• 1.0.0
  • Initial version working with defaultbrowser.

A more elaborate piece of documentation on bash completions is available from The Linux Documentation Project in the Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide.

From the GNU Documentation.

Good two-part article, "An Introduction to Bash Completion": Part 1 and Part 2.

Please note that this experimental implementation has only been tested with bash version 3 (see version 1.0.0).

Versions after version 1.0.0 have been tested with bash version 4.

The most comprehensive collection of bash completions I have come across is the one from the Debian Linux distribution. It is also the one offered for OSX via Homebrew.

• GitHub: kerma/defaultbrowser
• Today I Learned: Change Default Browser From the Command Line

This is made available under the MIT license, see separate license file.

©️ jonasbn 2018

©️ defaultbrowser Margus Kerma, MIT License