signature of tabexpansion function subobptimal

Hi,

When implementing tab completion, it is limiting to only be able to affect
the last word of the line.
I think it would be interesting to start a discussion of what we would want
from tabexpansion and what means we need to achieve it.

I'm certain other people have been frustration with cmd/powershell removing
everything after the current completion when editing an interior part of the
command line, so a feature would be to be able to complete words in the
middle of the command line.

To be able to provide the best completions, one would have to know the
context of the current cursor position.
The definitive information on this is only available after having run
powershell's own parser for the current command line.

The return value(s) from the tabexpansion function would have to indicate
what parts of the command line that is being completed (ie what to replace
by the new suggestionlist).

Anyone else care to chip in with their opinions on this matter?

Powershell Team, do you have anything you can tell us about thoughts in this
area for vNext?

Regards,
/Staffan

> Powershell Team, do you have anything you can tell us about thoughts in
> this area for vNext?
We are noodling around a couple of ideas around the area of tokenizing, user
input mechanisms and the ability of the community to participate. We have
some pretty exciting ideas but don't have anything to discuss yet.

--
Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]
Windows Management Partner Architect
Microsoft Corporation
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"Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]" <jsnover@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:%2301kz7yjHHA.2436@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> Powershell Team, do you have anything you can tell us about thoughts in
>> this area for vNext?
> We are noodling around a couple of ideas around the area of tokenizing,
> user input mechanisms and the ability of the community to participate. We
> have some pretty exciting ideas but don't have anything to discuss yet.
>

BTW I would love to be able to access not only $^ and $$ but the entire last
command as well. This is handy for checking errors when calling legacy
console apps. Right now somepointed out a way to do this using MyInvocation
and that works fine as long as the command doesn't span lines.

--
Keith