20.6 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.

• 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.