This repository contains a bash-completion file for vim.

The following features are curently supported:

• auto completion of remote files (vim scp://$host//files)
• basic argument completion

• bash and bash-completion
• vim scp:// completion
  • configure your ssh_config so that you can connect to your hosts by name without any options and ideally without a password prompt everytime
    • using key based authentication with ssh-agent or passwordless keyfiles is preferred

    Host machine
      Hostname 10.0.0.1
      User account
      IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
      PubkeyAuthentication yes
    

  • if the completion should be fast you want to enable control sockets

  Host *
    ControlMaster auto
    ControlPath ~/.ssh/sockets/%C
    ControlPersist 15m
  

  • The directory is not created automatically and can be done with mkdir -p ~/.ssh/sockets/.
  • remove : from COMP_WORDBREAKS which can be done by adding the following line to your bashrc
    • this is required because vim scp://machine//home/user/.bashrc does not use the same format as {rsync,scp} machine:/home/user/.bashrc does but the completion files by bash-completion are re-used

    export COMP_WORDBREAKS=${COMP_WORDBREAKS//:}

• clone the repo this repository into some directory git clone https://github.com/SuperSandro2000/vim-bash-completion.git ~/.bash_completion.d/vim-bash-completion
• load the completion file
  • on demand: either symlink (preferred) or copy the vim file into the follwoing directory
    • the directory can be defined by $BASH_COMPLETION_USER_DIR/completions which defaults to $XDG_DATA_HOME/bash-completion/completions which on itself defaults to ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions
    • See the question Q. Where should I install my own local completions? at the bash-completion faq for details
  • source the vim file in ~/.bash_completion
  • if you do not want to clone the repository you can also copy the function from the vim file into your ~/.bash_completion

I was surprised that I couldn't find any bash-completion script for vim. I also learned a couple of days before the scp:// remote feature in vim which is not that usuable without knowing file paths off the top of your head. I knew that scp and rsync have fantastic bash-completion for remote files which are very responsive if you use ssh sontrol sockets. See man ssh_config and search for ControlMaster.