CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonbashautocompletecommand-line-interface
Flux
Flux

Reputation: 10920

How to create autocomplete suggestion menu in interactive command line application?

Suppose I have this code:

choices = [
    'north',
    'south',
    'east',
    'west',
]

direction = input('Direction: ')

When this is run from the bash shell using python3 myprogram.py, the user will be prompted to type in a direction. There are only four choices, so I would like to show the user an autocomplete suggestion menu similar to this example in vim, except that the menu should appear in the bash shell:

completion

The user should be able to cycle through the available choices by pressing Tab or the up and down arrow keys.

How can I use Python to build an autocomplete suggestion menu that appears in the bash shell?

I tried the curses module, but it is not suitable because it clears the screen (similar to this problem). Do I have to manually manipulate ANSI escape characters?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1535

Answers (1)

Flux
Flux

Reputation: 10920

You can try using the Python Prompt Toolkit, a library for building interactive command line applications in Python.

The library makes it easy to add interactive autocompletion menus:

pgcli - Python Prompt Toolkit

(Image source: pcgli)

Upvotes: 3

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