* Info Catalog Prev elisp: Initial Input Up elisp: Minibuffers Next elisp: Yes-or-No Queries

elisp: Completion

 
 19.6 Completion
 ===============
 
 “Completion” is a feature that fills in the rest of a name starting from
 an abbreviation for it.  Completion works by comparing the user’s input
 against a list of valid names and determining how much of the name is
 determined uniquely by what the user has typed.  For example, when you
 type ‘C-x b’ (‘switch-to-buffer’) and then type the first few letters of
 the name of the buffer to which you wish to switch, and then type <TAB>
 (‘minibuffer-complete’), Emacs extends the name as far as it can.
 
    Standard Emacs commands offer completion for names of symbols, files,
 buffers, and processes; with the functions in this section, you can
 implement completion for other kinds of names.
 
    The ‘try-completion’ function is the basic primitive for completion:
 it returns the longest determined completion of a given initial string,
 with a given set of strings to match against.
 
    The function ‘completing-read’ provides a higher-level interface for
 completion.  A call to ‘completing-read’ specifies how to determine the
 list of valid names.  The function then activates the minibuffer with a
 local keymap that binds a few keys to commands useful for completion.
 Other functions provide convenient simple interfaces for reading certain
 kinds of names with completion.

Menu

 
· Basic Completion       Low-level functions for completing strings.
· Minibuffer Completion  Invoking the minibuffer with completion.
· Completion Commands    Minibuffer commands that do completion.
· High-Level Completion  Convenient special cases of completion
                              (reading buffer names, variable names, etc.).
· Reading File Names     Using completion to read file names and
                              shell commands.
· Completion Variables   Variables controlling completion behavior.
· Programmed Completion  Writing your own completion function.
· Completion in Buffers  Completing text in ordinary buffers.
* Info Catalog Prev elisp: Initial Input Up elisp: Minibuffers Next elisp: Yes-or-No Queries