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ZSHCOMPSYS(1)							 ZSHCOMPSYS(1)

NAME
       zshcompsys - zsh completion system

DESCRIPTION
       This describes the shell code for the `new' completion system, referred
       to as compsys.  It is written in shell functions based on the  features
       described in zshcompwid(1).

       The features are contextual, sensitive to the point at which completion
       is started.  Many completions are already provided.  For this reason, a
       user  can perform a great many tasks without knowing any details beyond
       how to initialize the system, which is described below  in  INITIALIZA‐
       TION.

       The context that decides what completion is to be performed may be
       ·      an  argument  or option position: these describe the position on
	      the command line at which completion is requested.  For  example
	      `first  argument	to  rmdir,  the	 word  being completed names a
	      directory';

       ·      a special context, denoting an element in	 the  shell's  syntax.
	      For  example  `a	word  in  command  position' or `an array sub‐
	      script'.

       A full context specification  contains  other  elements,	 as  we	 shall
       describe.

       Besides	commands  names and contexts, the system employs two more con‐
       cepts, styles and tags.	These provide ways for the user	 to  configure
       the system's behaviour.

       Tags  play  a dual role.	 They serve as a classification system for the
       matches, typically indicating a class of object that the user may  need
       to  distinguish.	 For example, when completing arguments of the ls com‐
       mand the user may prefer to try files before directories,  so  both  of
       these are tags.	They also appear as the rightmost element in a context
       specification.

       Styles modify various operations of the completion system, such as out‐
       put formatting, but also what kinds of completers are used (and in what
       order), or which tags are examined.  Styles may	accept	arguments  and
       are  manipulated	 using	the  zstyle  command  described in see zshmod‐
       ules(1).

       In summary, tags describe what the completion objects  are,  and	 style
       how they are to be completed.  At various points of execution, the com‐
       pletion system checks what styles and/or tags are defined for the  cur‐
       rent  context, and uses that to modify its behavior.  The full descrip‐
       tion of context handling, which determines how tags and other  elements
       of the context influence the behaviour of styles, is described below in
       COMPLETION SYSTEM CONFIGURATION.

       When a completion is requested, a dispatcher function  is  called;  see
       the  description	 of  _main_complete  in	 the list of control functions
       below. This dispatcher decides which function should be called to  pro‐
       duce the completions, and calls it. The result is passed to one or more
       completers, functions that implement individual completion  strategies:
       simple  completion, error correction, completion with error correction,
       menu selection, etc.

       More generally, the shell functions contained in the completion	system
       are of two types:
       ·      those beginning `comp' are to be called directly; there are only
	      a few of these;

       ·      those beginning `_' are called  by  the  completion  code.   The
	      shell  functions	of this set, which implement completion behav‐
	      iour and may be bound to keystrokes, are referred	 to  as	 `wid‐
	      gets'.  These proliferate as new completions are required.

INITIALIZATION
       If the system was installed completely, it should be enough to call the
       shell function compinit from your initialization	 file;	see  the  next
       section.	  However,  the	 function  compinstall can be run by a user to
       configure various aspects of the completion system.

       Usually, compinstall will insert code into .zshrc, although if that  is
       not  writable  it will save it in another file and tell you that file's
       location.  Note that it is up to you to make sure that the lines	 added
       to  .zshrc are actually run; you may, for example, need to move them to
       an earlier place in the file if .zshrc usually returns early.  So  long
       as you keep them all together (including the comment lines at the start
       and finish), you can rerun compinstall and it will correctly locate and
       modify  these lines.  Note, however, that any code you add to this sec‐
       tion by hand is likely to be lost if you	 rerun	compinstall,  although
       lines using the command `zstyle' should be gracefully handled.

       The  new	 code  will  take effect next time you start the shell, or run
       .zshrc by hand; there is also an option to make them take effect	 imme‐
       diately.	  However,  if	compinstall  has removed definitions, you will
       need to restart the shell to see the changes.

       To run compinstall you will need to make sure it is in a directory men‐
       tioned in your fpath parameter, which should already be the case if zsh
       was properly configured as long as your startup files do not remove the
       appropriate  directories	 from  fpath.	Then  it  must	be  autoloaded
       (`autoload -U compinstall' is recommended).  You can abort the  instal‐
       lation any time you are being prompted for information, and your .zshrc
       will not be altered at all; changes only take place right at  the  end,
       where you are specifically asked for confirmation.

   Use of compinit
       This section describes the use of compinit to initialize completion for
       the current session when called directly; if you have  run  compinstall
       it will be called automatically from your .zshrc.

       To  initialize  the system, the function compinit should be in a direc‐
       tory mentioned  in  the	fpath  parameter,  and	should	be  autoloaded
       (`autoload  -U  compinit'  is  recommended),  and  then	run  simply as
       `compinit'.  This will define a few utility functions, arrange for  all
       the necessary shell functions to be autoloaded, and will then re-define
       all widgets that do completion to use the new system.  If you  use  the
       menu-select  widget,  which  is	part  of  the zsh/complist module, you
       should make sure that that module is loaded before the call to compinit
       so  that	 that  widget  is  also re-defined.  If completion styles (see
       below) are set up  to  perform  expansion  as  well  as	completion  by
       default,	 and the TAB key is bound to expand-or-complete, compinit will
       rebind it to complete-word; this is necessary to use the	 correct  form
       of expansion.

       Should  you need to use the original completion commands, you can still
       bind keys to the old widgets by putting a `.' in front  of  the	widget
       name, e.g. `.expand-or-complete'.

       To speed up the running of compinit, it can be made to produce a dumped
       configuration that will be read in on future invocations; this  is  the
       default,	 but can be turned off by calling compinit with the option -D.
       The dumped file is .zcompdump in the  same  directory  as  the  startup
       files  (i.e.  $ZDOTDIR  or $HOME); alternatively, an explicit file name
       can be given  by	 `compinit  -d	dumpfile'.   The  next	invocation  of
       compinit	 will  read  the dumped file instead of performing a full ini‐
       tialization.

       If the number of completion files changes, compinit will recognise this
       and produce a new dump file.  However, if the name of a function or the
       arguments in the first line of a #compdef function (as described below)
       change,	it is easiest to delete the dump file by hand so that compinit
       will re-create it the next time it is run.  The check performed to  see
       if  there are new functions can be omitted by giving the option -C.  In
       this case the dump file	will  only  be	created	 if  there  isn't  one
       already.

       The  dumping  is	 actually  done by another function, compdump, but you
       will only need to run this yourself if  you  change  the	 configuration
       (e.g.  using  compdef)  and then want to dump the new one.  The name of
       the old dumped file will be remembered for this purpose.

       If the parameter _compdir is set, compinit uses it as a directory where
       completion  functions  can be found; this is only necessary if they are
       not already in the function search path.

       For security reasons compinit also  checks  if  the  completion	system
       would  use  files not owned by root or by the current user, or files in
       directories that are world- or group-writable or that are not owned  by
       root  or	 by the current user.  If such files or directories are found,
       compinit will ask if the completion system should really be  used.   To
       avoid  these tests and make all files found be used without asking, use
       the option -u, and to make compinit silently ignore all insecure	 files
       and  directories	 use  the  option  -i.	This security check is skipped
       entirely when the -C option is given.

       The security check can be retried at any time by running	 the  function
       compaudit.   This  is  the  same check used by compinit, but when it is
       executed directly any changes to fpath are made local to	 the  function
       so they do not persist.	The directories to be checked may be passed as
       arguments; if none are given, compaudit uses fpath and _compdir to find
       completion  system  directories, adding missing ones to fpath as neces‐
       sary.  To force a check of exactly the directories currently  named  in
       fpath,  set  _compdir  to  an  empty string before calling compaudit or
       compinit.

       The function bashcompinit provides compatibility with  bash's  program‐
       mable  completion system.  When run it will define the functions, comp‐
       gen and complete which correspond to the bash builtins  with  the  same
       names.	It  will then be possible to use completion specifications and
       functions written for bash.

   Autoloaded files
       The convention for autoloaded functions used in completion is that they
       start with an underscore; as already mentioned, the fpath/FPATH parame‐
       ter must contain the directory in which they are stored.	  If  zsh  was
       properly	 installed on your system, then fpath/FPATH automatically con‐
       tains the required directories for the standard functions.

       For incomplete installations, if compinit does not  find	 enough	 files
       beginning with an underscore (fewer than twenty) in the search path, it
       will try to find more by adding the directory _compdir  to  the	search
       path.  If that directory has a subdirectory named Base, all subdirecto‐
       ries will be added to the path.	Furthermore, if the subdirectory  Base
       has  a subdirectory named Core, compinit will add all subdirectories of
       the subdirectories is to the path: this allows the functions to	be  in
       the same format as in the zsh source distribution.

       When  compinit  is  run,	 it  searches  all  such  files accessible via
       fpath/FPATH and reads the first line of each of them.  This line should
       contain	one  of the tags described below.  Files whose first line does
       not start with one of these tags are not considered to be part  of  the
       completion system and will not be treated specially.

       The tags are:

       #compdef names... [ -[pP] patterns... [ -N names... ] ]
	      The  file	 will be made autoloadable and the function defined in
	      it will be called when completing names, each of which is either
	      the name of a command whose arguments are to be completed or one
	      of a number of special contexts in the form -context-  described
	      below.

	      Each  name may also be of the form `cmd=service'.	 When complet‐
	      ing the command cmd, the function typically behaves  as  if  the
	      command	(or  special  context)	service	 was  being  completed
	      instead.	This provides a way of altering the behaviour of func‐
	      tions that can perform many different completions.  It is imple‐
	      mented by setting the parameter $service when calling the	 func‐
	      tion;  the  function may choose to interpret this how it wishes,
	      and simpler functions will probably ignore it.

	      If the #compdef line contains one of the options -p or  -P,  the
	      words  following are taken to be patterns.  The function will be
	      called when completion is attempted for  a  command  or  context
	      that  matches  one  of  the patterns.  The options -p and -P are
	      used to specify patterns to be tried before or after other  com‐
	      pletions	respectively.  Hence -P may be used to specify default
	      actions.

	      The option -N is used after a list following -p or -P; it speci‐
	      fies that remaining words no longer define patterns.  It is pos‐
	      sible to toggle between the three options as many times as  nec‐
	      essary.

       #compdef -k style key-sequences...
	      This  option  creates  a widget behaving like the builtin widget
	      style and binds it to the	 given	key-sequences,	if  any.   The
	      style  must  be  one of the builtin widgets that perform comple‐
	      tion, namely complete-word, delete-char-or-list,	expand-or-com‐
	      plete,  expand-or-complete-prefix,  list-choices, menu-complete,
	      menu-expand-or-complete,	or  reverse-menu-complete.    If   the
	      zsh/complist  module  is	loaded	(see zshmodules(1)) the widget
	      menu-select is also available.

	      When one of the key-sequences is typed, the function in the file
	      will  be	invoked to generate the matches.  Note that a key will
	      not be re-bound if it already was (that is, was bound  to	 some‐
	      thing  other  than  undefined-key).   The widget created has the
	      same name as the file and can be bound to any other  keys	 using
	      bindkey as usual.

       #compdef -K widget-name style key-sequences ...
	      This  is	similar to -k except that only one key-sequences argu‐
	      ment may be given for each widget-name style pair.  However, the
	      entire  set  of three arguments may be repeated with a different
	      set of arguments.	 Note in particular that the widget-name  must
	      be  distinct  in	each  set.  If it does not begin with `_' this
	      will be added.  The widget-name should not clash with  the  name
	      of  any existing widget: names based on the name of the function
	      are most useful.	For example,

		     #compdef -K _foo_complete complete-word "^X^C" \
		       _foo_list list-choices "^X^D"

	      (all on one line) defines a widget _foo_complete for completion,
	      bound  to	 `^X^C',  and a widget _foo_list for listing, bound to
	      `^X^D'.

       #autoload [ options ]
	      Functions with the #autoload tag are marked for autoloading  but
	      are  not	otherwise treated specially.  Typically they are to be
	      called from within one of the completion functions.  Any options
	      supplied	will  be passed to the autoload builtin; a typical use
	      is +X to force the function to be loaded immediately.  Note that
	      the -U and -z flags are always added implicitly.

       The  #  is part of the tag name and no white space is allowed after it.
       The #compdef tags use the compdef function described  below;  the  main
       difference is that the name of the function is supplied implicitly.

       The special contexts for which completion functions can be defined are:

       -array-value-
	      The right hand side of an array-assignment (`foo=(...)')

       -brace-parameter-
	      The name of a parameter expansion within braces (`${...}')

       -assign-parameter-
	      The  name of a parameter in an assignment, i.e. on the left hand
	      side of an `='

       -command-
	      A word in command position

       -condition-
	      A word inside a condition (`[[...]]')

       -default-
	      Any word for which no other completion is defined

       -equal-
	      A word beginning with an equals sign

       -first-
	      This is tried before any other completion function.   The	 func‐
	      tion  called  may	 set the _compskip parameter to one of various
	      values: all: no further completion is attempted; a  string  con‐
	      taining  the substring patterns: no pattern completion functions
	      will be called; a string containing default:  the	 function  for
	      the  `-default-'	context	 will  not  be	called,	 but functions
	      defined for commands will

       -math- Inside mathematical contexts, such as `((...))'

       -parameter-
	      The name of a parameter expansion (`$...')

       -redirect-
	      The word after a redirection operator.

       -subscript-
	      The contents of a parameter subscript.

       -tilde-
	      After an initial tilde (`~'), but before the first slash in  the
	      word.

       -value-
	      On the right hand side of an assignment.

       Default	implementations	 are  supplied for each of these contexts.  In
       most cases the context -context-	 is  implemented  by  a	 corresponding
       function	 _context,  for example the context `-tilde-' and the function
       `_tilde').

       The contexts -redirect- and -value- allow extra context-specific infor‐
       mation.	(Internally, this is handled by the functions for each context
       calling the function _dispatch.)	 The extra information is added	 sepa‐
       rated by commas.

       For  the -redirect- context, the extra information is in the form `-re‐
       direct-,op,command', where op is the redirection operator  and  command
       is  the name of the command on the line.	 If there is no command on the
       line yet, the command field will be empty.

       For the -value- context, the form is `-value-,name,command', where name
       is  the	name of the parameter.	In the case of elements of an associa‐
       tive array,  for	 example  `assoc=(key  <TAB>',	name  is  expanded  to
       `name-key'.   In	 certain  special  contexts,  such as completing after
       `make CFLAGS=', the command part gives the name of  the	command,  here
       make; otherwise it is empty.

       It  is  not necessary to define fully specific completions as the func‐
       tions provided  will  try  to  generate	completions  by	 progressively
       replacing  the elements with `-default-'.  For example, when completing
       after `foo=<TAB>', _value will try the names `-value-,foo,'  (note  the
       empty	      command	       part),	       `-value-,foo,-default-'
       and`-value-,-default-,-default-', in that order, until it finds a func‐
       tion to handle the context.

       As an example:

	      compdef '_files -g "*.log"' '-redirect-,2>,-default-'

       completes  files matching `*.log' after `2> <TAB>' for any command with
       no more specific handler defined.

       Also:

	      compdef _foo -value-,-default-,-default-

       specifies that _foo provides completions for the values	of  parameters
       for  which  no special function has been defined.  This is usually han‐
       dled by the function _value itself.

       The same lookup rules are used when looking  up	styles	(as  described
       below); for example

	      zstyle ':completion:*:*:-redirect-,2>,*:*' file-patterns '*.log'

       is  another  way	 to  make  completion  after `2> <TAB>' complete files
       matching `*.log'.

   Functions
       The following function  is  defined  by	compinit  and  may  be	called
       directly.

       compdef	[ -ane ] function names... [ -[pP] patterns... [ -N names... ]
       ]
       compdef -d names...
       compdef -k [ -an ] function style key-sequences...
       compdef -K [ -an ] function name style key-sequences ...
	      The first form defines the function to call  for	completion  in
	      the given contexts as described for the #compdef tag above.

	      Alternatively,  all  the	arguments  may have the form `cmd=ser‐
	      vice'.   Here  service  should  already  have  been  defined  by
	      `cmd1=service' lines in #compdef files, as described above.  The
	      argument for cmd will be completed in the same way as service.

	      The function argument may alternatively be a  string  containing
	      almost  any  shell  code.	 If the string contains an equal sign,
	      the above will take precedence.  The option -e may  be  used  to
	      specify the first argument is to be evaluated as shell code even
	      if it contains an equal sign.  The string will be executed using
	      the eval builtin command to generate completions.	 This provides
	      a way of avoiding having to define a  new	 completion  function.
	      For  example,  to	 complete files ending in `.h' as arguments to
	      the command foo:

		     compdef '_files -g "*.h"' foo

	      The option -n prevents any completions already defined  for  the
	      command or context from being overwritten.

	      The  option -d deletes any completion defined for the command or
	      contexts listed.

	      The names may also contain -p, -P and -N	options	 as  described
	      for  the #compdef tag.  The effect on the argument list is iden‐
	      tical, switching between	definitions  of	 patterns  tried  ini‐
	      tially,  patterns	 tried	finally,  and normal commands and con‐
	      texts.

	      The parameter $_compskip may be set by any function defined  for
	      a	 pattern context.  If it is set to a value containing the sub‐
	      string `patterns' none of the pattern-functions will be  called;
	      if it is set to a value containing the substring `all', no other
	      function will be called.

	      The form with -k defines a widget with  the  same	 name  as  the
	      function that will be called for each of the key-sequences; this
	      is like the #compdef -k tag.  The function should	 generate  the
	      completions  needed  and	will otherwise behave like the builtin
	      widget whose name is given as the style argument.	  The  widgets
	      usable   for   this   are:  complete-word,  delete-char-or-list,
	      expand-or-complete,   expand-or-complete-prefix,	 list-choices,
	      menu-complete,  menu-expand-or-complete,	and  reverse-menu-com‐
	      plete, as well as menu-select  if	 the  zsh/complist  module  is
	      loaded.	The  option  -n	 prevents the key being bound if it is
	      already to bound to something other than undefined-key.

	      The form with -K is similar and defines multiple	widgets	 based
	      on  the  same  function, each of which requires the set of three
	      arguments name, style and key-sequences, where  the  latter  two
	      are  as for -k and the first must be a unique widget name begin‐
	      ning with an underscore.

	      Wherever applicable, the -a option makes the function  autoload‐
	      able, equivalent to autoload -U function.

       The function compdef can be used to associate existing completion func‐
       tions with new commands.	 For example,

	      compdef _pids foo

       uses the function _pids to complete process IDs for the command foo.

       Note also the _gnu_generic function described below, which can be  used
       to complete options for commands that understand the `--help' option.

COMPLETION SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
       This section gives a short overview of how the completion system works,
       and then more detail on how users can configure how  and	 when  matches
       are generated.

   Overview
       When  completion is attempted somewhere on the command line the comple‐
       tion system first works out the context.	 This takes account of a  num‐
       ber  of things including the command word (such as `grep' or `zsh') and
       options to which the current word may be an argument (such as the  `-o'
       option to zsh which takes a shell option as an argument).

       This  context information is condensed into a string consisting of mul‐
       tiple fields separated by colons, referred to simply as	`the  context'
       in the remainder of the documentation.  This is used to look up styles,
       context-sensitive options that can be used to configure the  completion
       system.	 The  context used for lookup may vary during the same call to
       the completion system.

       The context string always consists of a fixed set of fields,  separated
       by  colons and with a leading colon before the first, in the form :com‐
       pletion:function:completer:command:argument:tag.	 These have  the  fol‐
       lowing meaning:

       ·      The literal string completion, saying that this style is used by
	      the completion system.   This  distinguishes  the	 context  from
	      those used by, for example, zle widgets and ZFTP functions.

       ·      The function, if completion is called from a named widget rather
	      than through the normal completion system.   Typically  this  is
	      blank,  but  it is set by special widgets such as predict-on and
	      the various functions in the Widget directory of	the  distribu‐
	      tion to the name of that function, often in an abbreviated form.

       ·      The completer currently active, the name of the function without
	      the leading underscore and with other underscores	 converted  to
	      hyphens.	 A `completer' is in overall control of how completion
	      is to be performed; `complete' is the simplest, but  other  com‐
	      pleters exist to perform related tasks such as correction, or to
	      modify the behaviour of a	 later	completer.   See  the  section
	      `Control Functions' below for more information.

       ·      The command or a special -context-, just at it appears following
	      the #compdef tag or the compdef function.	 Completion  functions
	      for commands that have sub-commands usually modify this field to
	      contain the name of the command followed by a minus sign and the
	      sub-command.   For  example, the completion function for the cvs
	      command sets this field to cvs-add when completing arguments  to
	      the add subcommand.

       ·      The  argument; this indicates which command line or option argu‐
	      ment we are completing.  For command  arguments  this  generally
	      takes  the  form	argument-n, where n is the number of the argu‐
	      ment, and for arguments to options the form option-opt-n where n
	      is  the  number of the argument to option opt.  However, this is
	      only the case if	the  command  line  is	parsed	with  standard
	      UNIX-style options and arguments, so many completions do not set
	      this.

       ·      The tag.	As described previously, tags are used to discriminate
	      between  the types of matches a completion function can generate
	      in a certain context.  Any completion function may use  any  tag
	      name  it	likes,	but  a	list  of the more common ones is given
	      below.

       The context is gradually put together as the  functions	are  executed,
       starting	 with  the  main  entry point, which adds :completion: and the
       function element if necessary.  The completer then adds	the  completer
       element.	  The  contextual  completion  adds  the  command and argument
       options.	 Finally, the tag is added when the types  of  completion  are
       known.  For example, the context name

	      :completion::complete:dvips:option-o-1:files

       says  that normal completion was attempted as the first argument to the
       option -o of the command dvips:

	      dvips -o ...

       and the completion function will generate filenames.

       Usually completion will be tried for all	 possible  tags	 in  an	 order
       given  by  the  completion  function.   However, this can be altered by
       using the tag-order style.  Completion is then restricted to  the  list
       of given tags in the given order.

       The  _complete_help  bindable  command  shows all the contexts and tags
       available for completion at a particular point.	This provides an  easy
       way  of	finding	 information  for  tag-order  and other styles.	 It is
       described in the section `Bindable Commands' below.

       Styles determine such things as how the matches	are  generated,	 simi‐
       larly  to  shell options but with much more control.  They can have any
       number of strings as their value.  They are  defined  with  the	zstyle
       builtin command (see zshmodules(1)).

       When  looking  up styles the completion system uses full context names,
       including the tag.  Looking up the value of a style therefore  consists
       of two things:  the context, which may be matched as a pattern, and the
       name of the style itself, which must be given exactly.

       For example, many completion functions can generate matches in a simple
       and  a  verbose	form  and  use	the verbose style to decide which form
       should be used.	To make all such functions use the verbose form, put

	      zstyle ':completion:*' verbose yes

       in a startup file (probably .zshrc).  This gives the verbose style  the
       value  yes  in  every context inside the completion system, unless that
       context has a more specific definition.	It is best to avoid giving the
       context	as  `*' in case the style has some meaning outside the comple‐
       tion system.

       Many such general purpose styles can be configured simply by using  the
       compinstall function.

       A  more specific example of the use of the verbose style is by the com‐
       pletion for the kill builtin.  If the style is set, the	builtin	 lists
       full  job  texts and process command lines; otherwise it shows the bare
       job numbers and PIDs.  To turn the style off for this use only:

	      zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*' verbose no

       For even more control, the style can use one  of	 the  tags  `jobs'  or
       `processes'.  To turn off verbose display only for jobs:

	      zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*:jobs' verbose no

       The  -e option to zstyle even allows completion function code to appear
       as the argument to a style; this requires  some	understanding  of  the
       internals  of completion functions (see see zshcompwid(1))).  For exam‐
       ple,

	      zstyle -e ':completion:*' hosts 'reply=($myhosts)'

       This forces the value of the hosts style to be read from	 the  variable
       myhosts each time a host name is needed; this is useful if the value of
       myhosts can change dynamically.	For another useful  example,  see  the
       example in the description of the file-list style below.	 This form can
       be slow and should be avoided for commonly examined styles such as menu
       and list-rows-first.

       Note  that  the	order in which styles are defined does not matter; the
       style mechanism uses the most specific possible match for a  particular
       style to determine the set of values.  More precisely, strings are pre‐
       ferred over patterns (for example, `:completion::complete:foo' is  more
       specific	 than `:completion::complete:*'), and longer patterns are pre‐
       ferred over shorter patterns.

       Style names like those of tags are arbitrary and depend on the  comple‐
       tion  function.	 However,  the following two sections list some of the
       most common tags and styles.

   Standard Tags
       Some of the following are only used when looking up  particular	styles
       and do not refer to a type of match.

       accounts
	      used to look up the users-hosts style

       all-expansions
	      used by the _expand completer when adding the single string con‐
	      taining all possible expansions

       all-files
	      for the names of all files (as distinct from a  particular  sub‐
	      set, see the globbed-files tag).

       arguments
	      for arguments to a command

       arrays for names of array parameters

       association-keys
	      for  keys	 of  associative arrays; used when completing inside a
	      subscript to a parameter of this type

       bookmarks
	      when completing bookmarks (e.g. for URLs and the	zftp  function
	      suite)

       builtins
	      for names of builtin commands

       characters
	      for  single  characters  in  arguments of commands such as stty.
	      Also used when completing character  classes  after  an  opening
	      bracket

       colormapids
	      for X colormap ids

       colors for color names

       commands
	      for  names  of external commands.	 Also used by complex commands
	      such as cvs when completing names subcommands.

       contexts
	      for contexts in arguments to the zstyle builtin command

       corrections
	      used by the _approximate and _correct  completers	 for  possible
	      corrections

       cursors
	      for cursor names used by X programs

       default
	      used  in	some  contexts to provide a way of supplying a default
	      when more specific tags are also valid.  Note that this  tag  is
	      used when only the function field of the context name is set

       descriptions
	      used  when  looking up the value of the format style to generate
	      descriptions for types of matches

       devices
	      for names of device special files

       directories
	      for names of directories -- local-directories  is	 used  instead
	      when  completing	arguments  of  cd and related builtin commands
	      when the cdpath array is set

       directory-stack
	      for entries in the directory stack

       displays
	      for X display names

       domains
	      for network domains

       expansions
	      used by the _expand completer for individual words  (as  opposed
	      to  the complete set of expansions) resulting from the expansion
	      of a word on the command line

       extensions
	      for X server extensions

       file-descriptors
	      for numbers of open file descriptors

       files  the generic file-matching tag used by functions completing file‐
	      names

       fonts  for X font names

       fstypes
	      for file system types (e.g. for the mount command)

       functions
	      names of functions -- normally shell functions, although certain
	      commands may understand other kinds of function

       globbed-files
	      for filenames when the name has been generated by pattern match‐
	      ing

       groups for names of user groups

       history-words
	      for words from the history

       hosts  for hostnames

       indexes
	      for array indexes

       jobs   for jobs (as listed by the `jobs' builtin)

       interfaces
	      for network interfaces

       keymaps
	      for names of zsh keymaps

       keysyms
	      for names of X keysyms

       libraries
	      for names of system libraries

       limits for system limits

       local-directories
	      for  names of directories that are subdirectories of the current
	      working directory when completing arguments of  cd  and  related
	      builtin  commands	 (compare path-directories) -- when the cdpath
	      array is unset, directories is used instead

       manuals
	      for names of manual pages

       mailboxes
	      for e-mail folders

       maps   for map names (e.g. NIS maps)

       messages
	      used to look up the format style for messages

       modifiers
	      for names of X modifiers

       modules
	      for modules (e.g. zsh modules)

       my-accounts
	      used to look up the users-hosts style

       named-directories
	      for named directories (you wouldn't  have	 guessed  that,	 would
	      you?)

       names  for all kinds of names

       newsgroups
	      for USENET groups

       nicknames
	      for nicknames of NIS maps

       options
	      for command options

       original
	      used  by	the _approximate, _correct and _expand completers when
	      offering the original string as a match

       other-accounts
	      used to look up the users-hosts style

       other-files
	      for the names of any non-directory files.	 This is used  instead
	      of all-files when the list-dirs-first style is in effect.

       packages
	      for packages (e.g. rpm or installed Debian packages)

       parameters
	      for names of parameters

       path-directories
	      for  names  of  directories  found by searching the cdpath array
	      when completing arguments of cd  and  related  builtin  commands
	      (compare local-directories)

       paths  used  to	look  up  the values of the expand, ambiguous and spe‐
	      cial-dirs styles

       pods   for perl pods (documentation files)

       ports  for communication ports

       prefixes
	      for prefixes (like those of a URL)

       printers
	      for print queue names

       processes
	      for process identifiers

       processes-names
	      used to look up the command style when generating the  names  of
	      processes for killall

       sequences
	      for sequences (e.g. mh sequences)

       sessions
	      for sessions in the zftp function suite

       signals
	      for signal names

       strings
	      for  strings  (e.g.  the	replacement strings for the cd builtin
	      command)

       styles for styles used by the zstyle builtin command

       suffixes
	      for filename extensions

       tags   for tags (e.g. rpm tags)

       targets
	      for makefile targets

       time-zones
	      for time zones (e.g. when setting the TZ parameter)

       types  for types of whatever (e.g. address types for the xhost command)

       urls   used to look up the urls and local styles when completing URLs

       users  for usernames

       values for one of a set of values in certain lists

       variant
	      used by _pick_variant to look up the command to run when	deter‐
	      mining what program is installed for a particular command name.

       visuals
	      for X visuals

       warnings
	      used to look up the format style for warnings

       widgets
	      for zsh widget names

       windows
	      for IDs of X windows

       zsh-options
	      for shell options

   Standard Styles
       Note  that the values of several of these styles represent boolean val‐
       ues.  Any of the strings `true', `on', `yes', and `1' can be  used  for
       the  value  `true' and any of the strings `false', `off', `no', and `0'
       for the value `false'.  The behavior for any other value	 is  undefined
       except  where  explicitly  mentioned.   The default value may be either
       true or false if the style is not set.

       Some of these styles are tested first for  every	 possible  tag	corre‐
       sponding to a type of match, and if no style was found, for the default
       tag.  The most notable styles of this type are  menu,  list-colors  and
       styles	controlling   completion   listing  such  as  list-packed  and
       last-prompt.  When tested for the default tag, only the function	 field
       of  the	context will be set so that a style using the default tag will
       normally be defined along the lines of:

	      zstyle ':completion:*:default' menu ...

       accept-exact
	      This is tested for the default tag in addition to the tags valid
	      for  the current context.	 If it is set to `true' and any of the
	      trial matches is the same as the string  on  the	command	 line,
	      this match will immediately be accepted (even if it would other‐
	      wise be considered ambiguous).

	      When completing pathnames (where the tag used is	`paths')  this
	      style accepts any number of patterns as the value in addition to
	      the boolean values.  Pathnames matching one  of  these  patterns
	      will  be	accepted immediately even if the command line contains
	      some more partially typed pathname components and these match no
	      file under the directory accepted.

	      This  style  is  also used by the _expand completer to decide if
	      words beginning with a tilde or parameter	 expansion  should  be
	      expanded.	  For example, if there are parameters foo and foobar,
	      the string `$foo' will only be expanded if accept-exact  is  set
	      to  `true';  otherwise  the completion system will be allowed to
	      complete $foo to $foobar. If the style  is  set  to  `continue',
	      _expand  will  add  the  expansion as a match and the completion
	      system will also be allowed to continue.

       accept-exact-dirs
	      This is used by filename completion.  Unlike accept-exact it  is
	      a	 boolean.  By default, filename completion examines all compo‐
	      nents of a path to see if there are completions of  that	compo‐
	      nent,  even if the component matches an existing directory.  For
	      example, when completion after /usr/bin/, the function  examines
	      possible completions to /usr.

	      When  this  style	 is true, any prefix of a path that matches an
	      existing directory is accepted without any attempt  to  complete
	      it  further.  Hence, in the given example, the path /usr/bin/ is
	      accepted immediately and completion tried in that directory.

	      If  you  wish  to	 inhibit  this	behaviour  entirely,  set  the
	      path-completion style (see below) to false.

       add-space
	      This style is used by the _expand completer.  If it is true (the
	      default), a space will be inserted  after	 all  words  resulting
	      from  the	 expansion, or a slash in the case of directory names.
	      If the value is `file', the completer will only add a  space  to
	      names  of	 existing  files.   Either a boolean true or the value
	      `file' may be combined with `subst', in which case the completer
	      will  not add a space to words generated from the expansion of a
	      substitution of the form `$(...)' or `${...}'.

	      The _prefix completer uses this style as a simple boolean	 value
	      to decide if a space should be inserted before the suffix.

       ambiguous
	      This  applies  when  completing non-final components of filename
	      paths, in other words those with a trailing  slash.   If	it  is
	      set,  the	 cursor	 is  left after the first ambiguous component,
	      even if menu completion is in use.  The style is	always	tested
	      with the paths tag.

       assign-list
	      When completing after an equals sign that is being treated as an
	      assignment, the completion system normally  completes  only  one
	      filename.	  In  some cases the value  may be a list of filenames
	      separated by colons, as with PATH and similar parameters.	  This
	      style  can  be  set  to a list of patterns matching the names of
	      such parameters.

	      The default is to complete lists	when  the  word	 on  the  line
	      already contains a colon.

       auto-description
	      If  set,	this style's value will be used as the description for
	      options that are not described by the completion functions,  but
	      that  have exactly one argument.	The sequence `%d' in the value
	      will be replaced by the description for this argument.   Depend‐
	      ing  on personal preferences, it may be useful to set this style
	      to something like `specify: %d'.	Note that this	may  not  work
	      for some commands.

       avoid-completer
	      This  is	used  by  the  _all_matches completer to decide if the
	      string consisting of all matches should be  added	 to  the  list
	      currently being generated.  Its value is a list of names of com‐
	      pleters.	If any of these is the name of the completer that gen‐
	      erated  the  matches  in this completion, the string will not be
	      added.

	      The default value for this style is `_expand _old_list  _correct
	      _approximate',  i.e.  it	contains  the  completers  for which a
	      string with all matches will almost never be wanted.

       cache-path
	      This style defines the path where	 any  cache  files  containing
	      dumped  completion  data	are  stored.   It  defaults to `$ZDOT‐
	      DIR/.zcompcache', or  `$HOME/.zcompcache'	 if  $ZDOTDIR  is  not
	      defined.	 The  completion  cache	 will  not  be used unless the
	      use-cache style is set.

       cache-policy
	      This style defines the function that will be used	 to  determine
	      whether  a  cache	 needs	rebuilding.   See  the	section on the
	      _cache_invalid function below.

       call-command
	      This style is used in the function for commands such as make and
	      ant  where calling the command directly to generate matches suf‐
	      fers problems such as being slow or, as in the case of make  can
	      potentially  cause actions in the makefile to be executed. If it
	      is set to `true' the command is called to generate matches.  The
	      default value of this style is `false'.

       command
	      In  many places, completion functions need to call external com‐
	      mands to generate the list of completions.  This	style  can  be
	      used  to override the command that is called in some such cases.
	      The elements of the value are joined with spaces to form a  com‐
	      mand  line  to execute.  The value can also start with a hyphen,
	      in which case the usual command will be added to the  end;  this
	      is  most	useful	for putting `builtin' or `command' in front to
	      make sure the appropriate version of a command  is  called,  for
	      example  to avoid calling a shell function with the same name as
	      an external command.

	      As an example, the completion function for process IDs uses this
	      style with the processes tag to generate the IDs to complete and
	      the list of processes  to	 display  (if  the  verbose  style  is
	      `true').	 The list produced by the command should look like the
	      output of the ps command.	 The first line is not displayed,  but
	      is searched for the string `PID' (or `pid') to find the position
	      of the process IDs in the following lines.  If the line does not
	      contain  `PID', the first numbers in each of the other lines are
	      taken as the process IDs to complete.

	      Note that the completion function	 generally  has	 to  call  the
	      specified	 command  for  each attempt to generate the completion
	      list.  Hence care should be taken to specify only commands  that
	      take  a  short  time to run, and in particular to avoid any that
	      may never terminate.

       command-path
	      This is a list of directories to search  for  commands  to  com‐
	      plete.   The  default for this style is the value of the special
	      parameter path.

       commands
	      This is used by the function  completing	sub-commands  for  the
	      system  initialisation scripts (residing in /etc/init.d or some‐
	      where not too far away from that).  Its values give the  default
	      commands to complete for those commands for which the completion
	      function isn't able to find them out automatically.  The default
	      for this style are the two strings `start' and `stop'.

       complete
	      This  is	used  by  the _expand_alias function when invoked as a
	      bindable command.	 If set to `true' and the word on the  command
	      line  is	not the name of an alias, matching alias names will be
	      completed.

       complete-options
	      This is used by the completer for	 cd,  chdir  and  pushd.   For
	      these  commands a - is used to introduce a directory stack entry
	      and completion of these  is  far	more  common  than  completing
	      options.	 Hence	unless the value of this style is true options
	      will not be completed, even after an initial -.  If it is	 true,
	      options  will  be completed after an initial - unless there is a
	      preceding -- on the command line.

       completer
	      The strings given as the value of this style provide  the	 names
	      of the completer functions to use. The available completer func‐
	      tions are described in the section `Control Functions' below.

	      Each string may be either the name of a completer function or  a
	      string  of the form `function:name'.  In the first case the com‐
	      pleter field of the context will contain the name	 of  the  com‐
	      pleter  without the leading underscore and with all other under‐
	      scores replaced by hyphens.  In the second case the function  is
	      the  name of the completer to call, but the context will contain
	      the user-defined name in the completer field of the context.  If
	      the  name	 starts with a hyphen, the string for the context will
	      be build from the name of the completer function as in the first
	      case with the name appended to it.  For example:

		     zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _complete:-foo

	      Here,  completion	 will call the _complete completer twice, once
	      using `complete' and once using `complete-foo' in the  completer
	      field  of	 the context.  Normally, using the same completer more
	      than once only makes sense when used with	 the  `functions:name'
	      form, because otherwise the context name will be the same in all
	      calls to the completer; possible exceptions to this rule are the
	      _ignored and _prefix completers.

	      The  default  value for this style is `_complete _ignored': only
	      completion will be done, first using the ignored-patterns	 style
	      and the $fignore array and then without ignoring matches.

       condition
	      This  style is used by the _list completer function to decide if
	      insertion of matches  should  be	delayed	 unconditionally.  The
	      default is `true'.

       delimiters
	      This  style is used when adding a delimiter for use with history
	      modifiers or glob qualifiers that have delimited arguments.   It
	      is an array of preferred delimiters to add.  Non-special charac‐
	      ters are preferred as the completion system may otherwise become
	      confused.	  The  default list is :, +, /, -, %.  The list may be
	      empty to force a delimiter to be typed.

       disabled
	      If this is set to `true', the _expand_alias completer and	 bind‐
	      able  command  will  try	to  expand disabled aliases, too.  The
	      default is `false'.

       domains
	      A list of names of network domains for completion.  If  this  is
	      not   set,   domain   names   will   be	taken  from  the  file
	      /etc/resolv.conf.

       environ
	      The environ style is used when completing for `sudo'.  It is set
	      to  an  array of `VAR=value' assignments to be exported into the
	      local environment before the completion for the  target  command
	      is invoked.
	      zstyle ':completion:*:sudo::' environ \
		PATH="/sbin:/usr/sbin:$PATH" HOME="/root"

       expand This  style is used when completing strings consisting of multi‐
	      ple parts, such as path names.

	      If one of its values is the string `prefix', the partially typed
	      word  from  the line will be expanded as far as possible even if
	      trailing parts cannot be completed.

	      If one of its values is the string `suffix', matching names  for
	      components  after	 the  first  ambiguous one will also be added.
	      This means that the resulting string is the longest  unambiguous
	      string  possible.	 However, menu completion can be used to cycle
	      through all matches.

       fake   This style may be set for any completion context.	 It  specifies
	      additional  strings  that	 will always be completed in that con‐
	      text.  The form of each string is `value:description'; the colon
	      and  description may be omitted, but any literal colons in value
	      must be quoted with a backslash.	Any  description  provided  is
	      shown alongside the value in completion listings.

	      It  is  important to use a sufficiently restrictive context when
	      specifying fake strings.	Note that the  styles  fake-files  and
	      fake-parameters  provide	additional  features  when  completing
	      files or parameters.

       fake-always
	      This works  identically  to  the	fake  style  except  that  the
	      ignored-patterns style is not applied to it.  This makes it pos‐
	      sible to override a set of matches  completely  by  setting  the
	      ignored patterns to `*'.

	      The  following  shows  a way of supplementing any tag with arbi‐
	      trary data, but having it behave for  display  purposes  like  a
	      separate	tag.   In  this	 example  we  use  the features of the
	      tag-order style to divide the  named-directories	tag  into  two
	      when  performing completion with the standard completer complete
	      for arguments of cd.  The tag  named-directories-normal  behaves
	      as  normal,  but the tag named-directories-mine contains a fixed
	      set of directories.  This has the effect	of  adding  the	 match
	      group `extra directories' with the given completions.

		     zstyle ':completion::complete:cd:*' tag-order \
		       'named-directories:-mine:extra\ directories
		       named-directories:-normal:named\ directories *'
		     zstyle ':completion::complete:cd:*:named-directories-mine' \
		       fake-always mydir1 mydir2
		     zstyle ':completion::complete:cd:*:named-directories-mine' \
		       ignored-patterns '*'

       fake-files
	      This style is used when completing files and looked up without a
	      tag.  Its values are of the form `dir:names...'.	This will  add
	      the names (strings separated by spaces) as possible matches when
	      completing in the directory dir, even if no  such	 files	really
	      exist.   The  dir may be a pattern; pattern characters or colons
	      in dir should be quoted with a backslash to  be  treated	liter‐
	      ally.

	      This  can be useful on systems that support special file systems
	      whose top-level pathnames can not be listed  or  generated  with
	      glob  patterns.	It  can also be used for directories for which
	      one does not have read permission.

	      The pattern form can be used to add a certain `magic'  entry  to
	      all directories on a particular file system.

       fake-parameters
	      This  is	used  by  the completion function for parameter names.
	      Its values are names of parameters that might not yet be set but
	      should be completed nonetheless.	Each name may also be followed
	      by a colon and a string specifying the  type  of	the  parameter
	      (like  `scalar',	`array'	 or `integer').	 If the type is given,
	      the name will only be completed if parameters of that  type  are
	      required	in the particular context.  Names for which no type is
	      specified will always be completed.

       file-list
	      This style controls whether files completed using	 the  standard
	      builtin  mechanism  are to be listed with a long list similar to
	      ls -l.  Note that this feature uses the  shell  module  zsh/stat
	      for  file	 information;  this  loads the builtin stat which will
	      replace any external stat executable.  To avoid this the follow‐
	      ing code can be included in an initialization file:

		     zmodload -i zsh/stat
		     disable stat

	      The  style  may either be set to a true value (or `all'), or one
	      of the values `insert' or `list', indicating that files  are  to
	      be  listed in long format in all circumstances, or when attempt‐
	      ing to insert a file name, or when listing  file	names  without
	      attempting to insert one.

	      More  generally,	the  value may be an array of any of the above
	      values, optionally followed by =num.  If num is present it gives
	      the  maximum number of matches for which long listing style will
	      be used.	For example,

		     zstyle ':completion:*' file-list list=20 insert=10

	      specifies that long format will be used when listing  up	to  20
	      files  or	 inserting  a  file  with up to 10 matches (assuming a
	      listing is to be shown at all, for example on an ambiguous  com‐
	      pletion), else short format will be used.

		     zstyle -e ':completion:*' file-list '(( ${+NUMERIC} )) && reply=(true)'

	      specifies that long format will be used any time a numeric argu‐
	      ment is supplied, else short format.

       file-patterns
	      This is used by the standard function for completing  filenames,
	      _files.	If  the	 style	is unset up to three tags are offered,
	      `globbed-files',`directories' and `all-files', depending on  the
	      types of files  expected by the caller of _files.	 The first two
	      (`globbed-files'	and  `directories')   are   normally   offered
	      together to make it easier to complete files in sub-directories.

	      The  file-patterns  style	 provides  alternatives to the default
	      tags, which are not used.	 Its value consists of elements of the
	      form  `pattern:tag';  each string may contain any number of such
	      specifications separated by spaces.

	      The pattern is a pattern that is to be used  to  generate	 file‐
	      names.   Any  occurrence of the sequence `%p' is replaced by any
	      pattern(s) passed by the function calling _files.	 Colons in the
	      pattern  must  be	 preceded  by a backslash to make them distin‐
	      guishable from the colon before the tag.	If more than one  pat‐
	      tern  is	needed, the patterns can be given inside braces, sepa‐
	      rated by commas.

	      The tags of all strings in the value will be offered  by	_files
	      and  used	 when  looking	up other styles.  Any tags in the same
	      word will be offered at the same time and	 before	 later	words.
	      If no `:tag' is given the `files' tag will be used.

	      The  tag	may also be followed by an optional second colon and a
	      description, which will be used for the `%d' in the value of the
	      format style (if that is set) instead of the default description
	      supplied by the completion function.  If the  description	 given
	      here  contains itself a `%d', that is replaced with the descrip‐
	      tion supplied by the completion function.

	      For example, to make the rm command first complete only names of
	      object  files  and  then	the  names of all files if there is no
	      matching object file:

		     zstyle ':completion:*:*:rm:*' file-patterns \
			 '*.o:object-files' '%p:all-files'

	      To alter the default behaviour of file completion -- offer files
	      matching	a  pattern  and directories on the first attempt, then
	      all files -- to offer only matching files on the first  attempt,
	      then directories, and finally all files:

		     zstyle ':completion:*' file-patterns \
			 '%p:globbed-files' '*(-/):directories' '*:all-files'

	      This  works  even	 where	there  is  no  special pattern: _files
	      matches all files using the pattern `*' at the  first  step  and
	      stops  when it sees this pattern.	 Note also it will never try a
	      pattern more than once for a single completion attempt.

	      During the execution of completion functions, the	 EXTENDED_GLOB
	      option  is  in  effect,  so the characters `#', `~' and `^' have
	      special meanings in the patterns.

       file-sort
	      The standard filename completion function uses this style	 with‐
	      out  a  tag  to  determine  in  which  order the names should be
	      listed; menu completion will cycle  through  them	 in  the  same
	      order.   The  possible values are: `size' to sort by the size of
	      the file; `links' to sort by the number of links	to  the	 file;
	      `modification' (or `time' or `date') to sort by the last modifi‐
	      cation time; `access' to sort  by	 the  last  access  time;  and
	      `inode' (or `change') to sort by the last inode change time.  If
	      the style is set to any other value, or is unset, files will  be
	      sorted alphabetically by name.  If the value contains the string
	      `reverse', sorting is done in the opposite order.	 If the	 value
	      contains the string `follow', timestamps are associated with the
	      targets of symbolic links; the default is to use the  timestamps
	      of the links themselves.

       filter This is used by the LDAP plugin for e-mail address completion to
	      specify the attributes to match against when filtering  entries.
	      So  for  example,	 if the style is set to `sn', matching is done
	      against surnames.	 Standard LDAP filtering  is  used  so	normal
	      completion  matching is bypassed.	 If this style is not set, the
	      LDAP plugin is skipped.  You may also need to  set  the  command
	      style to specify how to connect to your LDAP server.

       force-list
	      This forces a list of completions to be shown at any point where
	      listing is done, even in cases where the list would  usually  be
	      suppressed.   For	 example,  normally  the list is only shown if
	      there are at least two different matches.	 By setting this style
	      to  `always',  the  list	will always be shown, even if there is
	      only a single match that	will  immediately  be  accepted.   The
	      style  may  also be set to a number.  In this case the list will
	      be shown if there are at least that many matches, even  if  they
	      would all insert the same string.

	      This style is tested for the default tag as well as for each tag
	      valid for the current completion.	  Hence	 the  listing  can  be
	      forced only for certain types of match.

       format If  this is set for the descriptions tag, its value is used as a
	      string to	 display  above	 matches  in  completion  lists.   The
	      sequence	`%d'  in  this	string	will  be replaced with a short
	      description of what these matches are.   This  string  may  also
	      contain the following sequences to specify output attributes, as
	      described in the section EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES  in  zsh‐
	      misc(1): `%B', `%S', `%U', `%F', `%K' and their lower case coun‐
	      terparts, as well as `%{...%}'.  `%F', `%K' and  `%{...%}'  take
	      arguments	 in  the same form as prompt expansion.	 Note that the
	      %G sequence is not available; an argument to `%{' should be used
	      instead.

	      The  style is tested with each tag valid for the current comple‐
	      tion before it is tested for the descriptions tag.   Hence  dif‐
	      ferent  format  strings  can  be	defined for different types of
	      match.

	      Note  also  that	some  completer	 functions  define  additional
	      `%'-sequences.   These are described for the completer functions
	      that make use of them.

	      Some completion functions display	 messages  that	 may  be  cus‐
	      tomised  by  setting this style for the messages tag.  Here, the
	      `%d' is replaced with a message given by	the  completion	 func‐
	      tion.

	      Finally,	the  format string is looked up with the warnings tag,
	      for use when no matches could be generated at all.  In this case
	      the  `%d' is replaced with the descriptions for the matches that
	      were  expected  separated	 by  spaces.   The  sequence  `%D'  is
	      replaced with the same descriptions separated by newlines.

	      It  is  possible to use printf-style field width specifiers with
	      `%d' and similar escape sequences.  This is handled by the zfor‐
	      mat  builtin  command  from  the	zsh/zutil  module, see zshmod‐
	      ules(1).

       glob   This is used by the _expand completer.  If it is set  to	`true'
	      (the default), globbing will be attempted on the words resulting
	      from a previous substitution (see the substitute style) or  else
	      the original string from the line.

       global If  this	is set to `true' (the default), the _expand_alias com‐
	      pleter and bindable command will try to expand global aliases.

       group-name
	      The completion system can	 group	different  types  of  matches,
	      which  appear in separate lists.	This style can be used to give
	      the names of groups for particular tags.	For example,  in  com‐
	      mand  position  the completion system generates names of builtin
	      and external commands, names of  aliases,	 shell	functions  and
	      parameters  and reserved words as possible completions.  To have
	      the external commands and shell functions listed separately:

		     zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:commands' group-name commands
		     zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*:functions' group-name functions

	      As a consequence, any match with the same tag will be  displayed
	      in the same group.

	      If  the  name  given is the empty string the name of the tag for
	      the matches will be used as the name of the group.  So, to  have
	      all  different  types  of	 matches displayed separately, one can
	      just set:

		     zstyle ':completion:*' group-name ''

	      All matches for which no group name is defined will be put in  a
	      group named -default-.

       group-order
	      This  style is additional to the group-name style to specify the
	      order for display of the groups defined by that  style  (compare
	      tag-order,  which	 determines  which completions appear at all).
	      The groups named are shown in the given order; any other	groups
	      are shown in the order defined by the completion function.

	      For  example, to have names of builtin commands, shell functions
	      and external commands appear in that order  when	completing  in
	      command position:

		     zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*' group-order \
			    builtins functions commands

       groups A list of names of UNIX groups.  If this is not set, group names
	      are taken from the YP database or the file `/etc/group'.

       hidden If this is set to true, matches for the given context  will  not
	      be listed, although any description for the matches set with the
	      format style will be shown.  If it is set to `all', not even the
	      description will be displayed.

	      Note that the matches will still be completed; they are just not
	      shown in the list.  To avoid having matches considered as possi‐
	      ble  completions	at all, the tag-order style can be modified as
	      described below.

       hosts  A list of names of hosts that should be completed.  If  this  is
	      not set, hostnames are taken from the file `/etc/hosts'.

       hosts-ports
	      This style is used by commands that need or accept hostnames and
	      network ports.  The strings in the value should be of  the  form
	      `host:port'.   Valid  ports  are	determined  by the presence of
	      hostnames; multiple ports for the same host may appear.

       ignore-line
	      This is tested for each tag valid for  the  current  completion.
	      If  it  is  set to `true', none of the words that are already on
	      the line will be considered as possible completions.  If	it  is
	      set  to `current', the word the cursor is on will not be consid‐
	      ered as a possible completion.   The  value  `current-shown'  is
	      similar but only applies if the list of completions is currently
	      shown on the screen.  Finally, if the style is set  to  `other',
	      all  words  on  the  line	 except	 for  the  current one will be
	      excluded from the possible completions.

	      The values `current' and `current-shown'	are  a	bit  like  the
	      opposite	of  the accept-exact style:  only strings with missing
	      characters will be completed.

	      Note that you almost certainly don't want to set this to	`true'
	      or  `other' for a general context such as `:completion:*'.  This
	      is because it would disallow completion of, for example, options
	      multiple	times  even  if	 the  command  in question accepts the
	      option more than once.

       ignore-parents
	      The style is tested without a tag	 by  the  function  completing
	      pathnames	 in  order to determine whether to ignore the names of
	      directories already mentioned in the current word, or  the  name
	      of the current working directory.	 The value must include one or
	      both of the following strings:

	      parent The name of any directory whose path is already contained
		     in	 the  word  on the line is ignored.  For example, when
		     completing after foo/../, the directory foo will  not  be
		     considered a valid completion.

	      pwd    The  name	of  the	 current working directory will not be
		     completed; hence, for example, completion after ../  will
		     not use the name of the current directory.

	      In addition, the value may include one or both of:

	      ..     Ignore  the  specified  directories only when the word on
		     the line contains the substring `../'.

	      directory
		     Ignore the	 specified  directories	 only  when  names  of
		     directories  are  completed, not when completing names of
		     files.

	      Excluded values act in  a	 similar  fashion  to  values  of  the
	      ignored-patterns style, so they can be restored to consideration
	      by the _ignored completer.

       extra-verbose
	      If set, the completion listing is more verbose at the cost of  a
	      probable	decrease  in completion speed.	Completion performance
	      will suffer if this style is set to `true'.

       ignored-patterns
	      A list of patterns; any trial completion	matching  one  of  the
	      patterns will be excluded from consideration.  The _ignored com‐
	      pleter can appear in the	list  of  completers  to  restore  the
	      ignored  matches.	  This	is  a more configurable version of the
	      shell parameter $fignore.

	      Note that the EXTENDED_GLOB option is set during	the  execution
	      of completion functions, so the characters `#', `~' and `^' have
	      special meanings in the patterns.

       insert This style is used  by  the  _all_matches	 completer  to	decide
	      whether  to  insert  the	list  of  all  matches unconditionally
	      instead of adding the list as another match.

       insert-ids
	      When completing process IDs, for example	as  arguments  to  the
	      kill and wait builtins the name of a command may be converted to
	      the appropriate process ID.  A problem arises when  the  process
	      name  typed  is not unique.  By default (or if this style is set
	      explicitly to `menu') the name will be converted immediately  to
	      a	 set  of  possible IDs, and menu completion will be started to
	      cycle through them.

	      If the value of the style is `single', the shell will wait until
	      the user has typed enough to make the command unique before con‐
	      verting the name to an ID; attempts at completion will be unsuc‐
	      cessful  until  that  point.   If the value is any other string,
	      menu completion will be started when the	string	typed  by  the
	      user is longer than the common prefix to the corresponding IDs.

       insert-tab
	      If  this	is  set to `true', the completion system will insert a
	      TAB character (assuming  that  was  used	to  start  completion)
	      instead  of  performing  completion  when	 there is no non-blank
	      character to the left of the cursor.  If it is set  to  `false',
	      completion will be done even there.

	      The  value  may  also contain the substrings `pending' or `pend‐
	      ing=val'.	 In this case, the typed character  will  be  inserted
	      instead  of  starting completion when there is unprocessed input
	      pending.	If a val is given, completion  will  not  be  done  if
	      there  are  at  least that many characters of unprocessed input.
	      This is often useful when pasting characters  into  a  terminal.
	      Note  however,  that it relies on the $PENDING special parameter
	      from the zsh/zle module being set properly which is not  guaran‐
	      teed on all platforms.

	      The  default value of this style is `true' except for completion
	      within vared builtin command where it is `false'.

       insert-unambiguous
	      This is used by the _match and _approximate  completers.	 These
	      completers  are  often  used with menu completion since the word
	      typed may bear little resemblance to the final completion.  How‐
	      ever,  if	 this  style  is `true', the completer will start menu
	      completion only if it could find no unambiguous  initial	string
	      at least as long as the original string typed by the user.

	      In  the  case of the _approximate completer, the completer field
	      in the context will already have been set to one of  correct-num
	      or  approximate-num, where num is the number of errors that were
	      accepted.

	      In the case of the _match completer, the style may also  be  set
	      to  the  string `pattern'.  Then the pattern on the line is left
	      unchanged if it does not match unambiguously.

       keep-prefix
	      This style is used by the _expand completer.  If it  is  `true',
	      the  completer  will  try to keep a prefix containing a tilde or
	      parameter expansion.  Hence,  for	 example,  the	string	`~/f*'
	      would  be	 expanded  to `~/foo' instead of `/home/user/foo'.  If
	      the style is set to `changed' (the  default),  the  prefix  will
	      only  be	left unchanged if there were other changes between the
	      expanded words and the original word from the command line.  Any
	      other value forces the prefix to be expanded unconditionally.

	      The  behaviour  of  expand  when	this style is true is to cause
	      _expand to give up when a single	expansion  with	 the  restored
	      prefix  is  the  same  as the original; hence any remaining com‐
	      pleters may be called.

       last-prompt
	      This is a more flexible form of the  ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT  option.
	      If it is true, the completion system will try to return the cur‐
	      sor to the previous command line after displaying	 a  completion
	      list.   It  is tested for all tags valid for the current comple‐
	      tion, then the default tag.  The cursor will be  moved  back  to
	      the  previous  line  if  this  style  is `true' for all types of
	      match.  Note that unlike the ALWAYS_LAST_PROMPT option  this  is
	      independent of the numeric prefix argument.

       known-hosts-files
	      This  style  should  contain  a list of files to search for host
	      names and (if the use-ip style is set) IP addresses in a	format
	      compatible  with	ssh  known_hosts files.	 If it is not set, the
	      files /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts and ~/.ssh/known_hosts are used.

       list   This style is used by the _history_complete_word	bindable  com‐
	      mand.  If it is set to `true' it has no effect.  If it is set to
	      `false' matches will not be listed.  This overrides the  setting
	      of  the  options	controlling  listing  behaviour, in particular
	      AUTO_LIST.  The context  always  starts  with  `:completion:his‐
	      tory-words'.

       list-colors
	      If  the zsh/complist module is loaded, this style can be used to
	      set color specifications.	 This mechanism replaces  the  use  of
	      the  ZLS_COLORS and ZLS_COLOURS parameters described in the sec‐
	      tion `The zsh/complist Module' in zshmodules(1), but the	syntax
	      is the same.

	      If  this	style  is  set for the default tag, the strings in the
	      value are taken as specifications that are  to  be  used	every‐
	      where.  If it is set for other tags, the specifications are used
	      only for matches of the type described by the tag.  For this  to
	      work best, the group-name style must be set to an empty string.

	      In addition to setting styles for specific tags, it is also pos‐
	      sible to use group names specified explicitly by the  group-name
	      tag together with the `(group)' syntax allowed by the ZLS_COLORS
	      and ZLS_COLOURS parameters and simply using the default tag.

	      It is possible to use any color specifications  already  set  up
	      for the GNU version of the ls command:

		     zstyle ':completion:*:default' list-colors ${(s.:.)LS_COLORS}

	      The  default  colors  are the same as for the GNU ls command and
	      can be obtained by setting the style to an  empty	 string	 (i.e.
	      '').

       list-dirs-first
	      This is used by file completion.	If set, directories to be com‐
	      pleted are listed separately  from  and  before  completion  for
	      other  files,  regardless of tag ordering.  In addition, the tag
	      other-files is used in place  of	all-files  for	the  remaining
	      files,  to  indicate that no directories are presented with that
	      tag.

       list-grouped
	      If this style is `true' (the  default),  the  completion	system
	      will  try	 to  make  certain completion listings more compact by
	      grouping matches.	 For example, options for commands  that  have
	      the  same	 description  (shown  when the verbose style is set to
	      `true') will appear as a single entry.  However, menu  selection
	      can be used to cycle through all the matches.

       list-packed
	      This is tested for each tag valid in the current context as well
	      as the default tag.  If it is set to `true',  the	 corresponding
	      matches  appear  in  listings  as if the LIST_PACKED option were
	      set.  If it is set to `false', they are listed normally.

       list-prompt
	      If this style is set for the default tag, completion lists  that
	      don't  fit on the screen can be scrolled (see the description of
	      the zsh/complist module in zshmodules(1)).  The  value,  if  not
	      the  empty  string,  will be displayed after every screenful and
	      the shell will prompt for a key press; if the style  is  set  to
	      the empty string, a default prompt will be used.

	      The  value may contain the escape sequences: `%l' or `%L', which
	      will be replaced by the number of the last  line	displayed  and
	      the total number of lines; `%m' or `%M', the number of the  last
	      match shown and the total number of matches; and `%p' and	 `%P',
	      `Top'  when  at  the beginning of the list, `Bottom' when at the
	      end and the position shown as a percentage of the	 total	length
	      otherwise.  In each case the form with the uppercase letter will
	      be replaced by a string of fixed width,  padded  to  the	 right
	      with  spaces,  while  the	 lowercase  form will be replaced by a
	      variable width string.  As in other prompt strings,  the	escape
	      sequences	 `%S',	`%s',  `%B', `%b', `%U', `%u' for entering and
	      leaving the display modes	 standout,  bold  and  underline,  and
	      `%F',  `%f',  `%K',  `%k' for changing the foreground background
	      colour, are also available, as is the form `%{...%}' for enclos‐
	      ing escape sequences which display with zero (or, with a numeric
	      argument, some other) width.

	      After deleting this prompt the  variable	LISTPROMPT  should  be
	      unset for the removal to take effect.

       list-rows-first
	      This  style  is  tested in the same way as the list-packed style
	      and determines whether matches are to be listed in a  rows-first
	      fashion as if the LIST_ROWS_FIRST option were set.

       list-suffixes
	      This style is used by the function that completes filenames.  If
	      it is true, and completion is attempted on a  string  containing
	      multiple partially typed pathname components, all ambiguous com‐
	      ponents will be shown.  Otherwise, completion stops at the first
	      ambiguous component.

       list-separator
	      The  value  of this style is used in completion listing to sepa‐
	      rate the string to complete from	a  description	when  possible
	      (e.g.  when  completing  options).   It  defaults	 to  `--' (two
	      hyphens).

       local  This is for use with functions that complete URLs for which  the
	      corresponding files are available directly from the file system.
	      Its value should consist of three strings: a hostname, the  path
	      to  the default web pages for the server, and the directory name
	      used by a user placing web pages within their home area.

	      For example:

		     zstyle ':completion:*' local toast \
			 /var/http/public/toast public_html

	      Completion after `http://toast/stuff/' will look	for  files  in
	      the  directory  /var/http/public/toast/stuff,   while completion
	      after `http://toast/~yousir/' will look for files in the	direc‐
	      tory ~yousir/public_html.

       mail-directory
	      If  set,	zsh will assume that mailbox files can be found in the
	      directory specified.  It defaults to `~/Mail'.

       match-original
	      This is used by the _match completer.  If it  is	set  to	 only,
	      _match  will  try to generate matches without inserting a `*' at
	      the cursor position.  If set to any other	 non-empty  value,  it
	      will first try to generate matches without inserting the `*' and
	      if that yields no matches,  it  will  try	 again	with  the  `*'
	      inserted.	  If  it is unset or set to the empty string, matching
	      will only be performed with the `*' inserted.

       matcher
	      This style is tested separately for each tag valid in  the  cur‐
	      rent  context.   Its  value is added to any match specifications
	      given by the matcher-list style.	 It  should  be	 in  the  form
	      described	 in  the section `Completion Matching Control' in zsh‐
	      compwid(1).

       matcher-list
	      This style can be set to a list of match specifications that are
	      to  be applied everywhere. Match specifications are described in
	      the section `Completion Matching Control' in zshcompwid(1).  The
	      completion  system will try them one after another for each com‐
	      pleter selected.	For example, to try  first  simple  completion
	      and, if that generates no matches, case-insensitive completion:

		     zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'

	      By  default  each	 specification replaces the previous one; how‐
	      ever, if a specification is prefixed with +, it is added to  the
	      existing list.  Hence it is possible to create increasingly gen‐
	      eral specifications without repetition:

		     zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list '' '+m{a-z}={A-Z}' '+m{A-Z}={a-z}'

	      It is possible to create match specifications valid for particu‐
	      lar  completers  by  using  the third field of the context.  For
	      example, to use the completers _complete and  _prefix  but  only
	      allow case-insensitive completion with _complete:

		     zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _prefix
		     zstyle ':completion:*:complete:*' matcher-list \
			    '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'

	      User-defined  names,  as	explained for the completer style, are
	      available.  This makes it possible to  try  the  same  completer
	      more  than  once	with different match specifications each time.
	      For example, to try normal completion without a match specifica‐
	      tion,  then  normal  completion  with case-insensitive matching,
	      then correction, and finally partial-word completion:

		     zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _correct _complete:foo
		     zstyle ':completion:*:complete:*' matcher-list \
			 '' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}'
		     zstyle ':completion:*:foo:*' matcher-list \
			 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z} r:|[-_./]=* r:|=*'

	      If the style is unset in any context no match  specification  is
	      applied.	 Note  also  that some completers such as _correct and
	      _approximate do not use the match specifications at all,	though
	      these  completers	 will  only  ever  be  called once even if the
	      matcher-list contains more than one element.

	      Where multiple specifications are useful, note that  the	entire
	      completion  is  done for each element of matcher-list, which can
	      quickly reduce the shell's performance.	As  a  rough  rule  of
	      thumb,  one  to  three strings will give acceptable performance.
	      On the other hand, putting multiple space-separated values  into
	      the  same	 string does not have an appreciable impact on perfor‐
	      mance.

	      If there is no current matcher or it is empty,  and  the	option
	      NO_CASE_GLOB  is	in effect, the matching for files is performed
	      case-insensitively in  any  case.	  However,  any	 matcher  must
	      explicitly   specify   case-insensitive	matching  if  that  is
	      required.

       max-errors
	      This is used by the _approximate and  _correct  completer	 func‐
	      tions  to	 determine the maximum number of errors to allow.  The
	      completer will try to generate completions by first allowing one
	      error,  then  two	 errors,  and  so  on, until either a match or
	      matches were found or the maximum number of errors given by this
	      style has been reached.

	      If  the  value for this style contains the string `numeric', the
	      completer function will take any numeric argument as the maximum
	      number of errors allowed. For example, with

		     zstyle ':completion:*:approximate:::' max-errors 2 numeric

	      two errors are allowed if no numeric argument is given, but with
	      a numeric argument of six (as in `ESC-6 TAB'), up to six	errors
	      are  accepted.  Hence with a value of `0 numeric', no correcting
	      completion will be attempted unless a numeric argument is given.

	      If the value contains the string	`not-numeric',	the  completer
	      will  not	 try  to  generate  corrected completions when given a
	      numeric argument, so in this case the  number  given  should  be
	      greater  than zero.  For example, `2 not-numeric' specifies that
	      correcting completion with two errors will usually be performed,
	      but  if  a numeric argument is given, correcting completion will
	      not be performed.

	      The default value for this style is `2 numeric'.

       max-matches-width
	      This style is used to determine the trade off between the	 width
	      of  the  display	used  for matches and the width used for their
	      descriptions when the verbose style is  in  effect.   The	 value
	      gives  the number of display columns to reserve for the matches.
	      The default is half the width of the screen.

	      This has the most impact when  several  matches  have  the  same
	      description  and	so  will  be grouped together.	Increasing the
	      style will allow more matches to be grouped together; decreasing
	      it will allow more of the description to be visible.

       menu   If  this	is  true in the context of any of the tags defined for
	      the current completion menu completion will be used.  The	 value
	      for  a  specific	tag  will  take	 precedence  over that for the
	      `default' tag.

	      If none of the values found in this way is true but at least one
	      is  set  to `auto', the shell behaves as if the AUTO_MENU option
	      is set.

	      If one of the values is explicitly set to false, menu completion
	      will  be	explicitly  turned  off,  overriding the MENU_COMPLETE
	      option and other settings.

	      In the form `yes=num', where `yes' may be any of the true values
	      (`yes', `true', `on' and `1'), menu completion will be turned on
	      if there are at least num matches.  In the form `yes=long', menu
	      completion  will	be  turned  on if the list does not fit on the
	      screen.  This does not activate menu completion  if  the	widget
	      normally	only  lists  completions,  but	menu completion can be
	      activated in that case with  the	value  `yes=long-list'	(Typi‐
	      cally, the value `select=long-list' described later is more use‐
	      ful as it provides control over scrolling.)

	      Similarly, with any of the `false' values (as in `no=10'),  menu
	      completion will not be used if there are num or more matches.

	      The value of this widget also controls menu selection, as imple‐
	      mented by the zsh/complist module.   The	following  values  may
	      appear either alongside or instead of the values above.

	      If  the  value contains the string `select', menu selection will
	      be started unconditionally.

	      In the form `select=num', menu selection will only be started if
	      there are at least num matches.  If the values for more than one
	      tag provide a number, the smallest number is taken.

	      Menu selection can be turned off explicitly by defining a	 value
	      containing the string`no-select'.

	      It  is also possible to start menu selection only if the list of
	      matches  does  not  fit  on  the	screen	by  using  the	 value
	      `select=long'.  To start menu selection even if the current wid‐
	      get only performs listing, use the value `select=long-list'.

	      To turn on menu completion or menu selection when a there are  a
	      certain number of matches or the list of matches does not fit on
	      the screen, both of `yes=' and `select='	may  be	 given	twice,
	      once with a number and once with `long' or `long-list'.

	      Finally,	it  is	possible to activate two special modes of menu
	      selection.  The word `interactive' in the value causes  interac‐
	      tive  mode  to  be  entered  immediately	when menu selection is
	      started; see the description of the zsh/complist module in  zsh‐
	      modules(1) for a description of interactive mode.	 Including the
	      string `search' does the same for incremental search  mode.   To
	      select   backward	  incremental	search,	  include  the	string
	      `search-backward'.

       muttrc If set, gives the location of the mutt configuration  file.   It
	      defaults to `~/.muttrc'.

       numbers
	      This is used with the jobs tag.  If it is `true', the shell will
	      complete job numbers instead of the shortest unambiguous	prefix
	      of  the job command text.	 If the value is a number, job numbers
	      will only be used if that many words from the  job  descriptions
	      are  required to resolve ambiguities.  For example, if the value
	      is `1', strings will only be used if  all	 jobs  differ  in  the
	      first word on their command lines.

       old-list
	      This  is	used  by  the  _oldlist	 completer.   If  it is set to
	      `always', then  standard	widgets	 which	perform	 listing  will
	      retain the current list of matches, however they were generated;
	      this can be turned off explicitly with the value `never', giving
	      the  behaviour  without the _oldlist completer.  If the style is
	      unset, or any other value, then the existing list of completions
	      is  displayed if it is not already; otherwise, the standard com‐
	      pletion list is generated; this  is  the	default	 behaviour  of
	      _oldlist.	  However, if there is an old list and this style con‐
	      tains the name of the  completer	function  that	generated  the
	      list, then the old list will be used even if it was generated by
	      a widget which does not do listing.

	      For example, suppose you type ^Xc to use the _correct_word  wid‐
	      get,  which  generates  a list of corrections for the word under
	      the cursor.  Usually, typing ^D would generate a	standard  list
	      of  completions for the word on the command line, and show that.
	      With _oldlist, it will instead  show  the	 list  of  corrections
	      already generated.

	      As  another  example  consider  the  _match  completer: with the
	      insert-unambiguous style set to `true' it inserts only a	common
	      prefix  string, if there is any.	However, this may remove parts
	      of the original pattern, so that further completion  could  pro‐
	      duce  more  matches  than	 on  the  first attempt.  By using the
	      _oldlist completer and setting this style to _match, the list of
	      matches generated on the first attempt will be used again.

       old-matches
	      This  is	used by the _all_matches completer to decide if an old
	      list of matches should be used if one exists.  This is  selected
	      by  one  of  the	`true' values or by the string `only'.	If the
	      value is `only', _all_matches will only  use  an	old  list  and
	      won't  have  any	effect	on the list of matches currently being
	      generated.

	      If this style  is	 set  it  is  generally	 unwise	 to  call  the
	      _all_matches completer unconditionally.  One possible use is for
	      either this style or the completer style to be defined with  the
	      -e option to zstyle to make the style conditional.

       old-menu
	      This  is	used  by the _oldlist completer.  It controls how menu
	      completion behaves when a completion has already	been  inserted
	      and  the	user types a standard completion key such as TAB.  The
	      default behaviour of _oldlist is	that  menu  completion	always
	      continues	 with the existing list of completions.	 If this style
	      is set to `false', however, a new completion is started  if  the
	      old  list	 was generated by a different completion command; this
	      is the behaviour without the _oldlist completer.

	      For example, suppose you type ^Xc to generate a list of  correc‐
	      tions,  and menu completion is started in one of the usual ways.
	      Usually, or with this style set to false,	 typing	 TAB  at  this
	      point would start trying to complete the line as it now appears.
	      With _oldlist, it instead continues to cycle through the list of
	      corrections.

       original
	      This  is	used  by  the  _approximate and _correct completers to
	      decide if the original string should be added as a possible com‐
	      pletion.	 Normally, this is done only if there are at least two
	      possible corrections, but if this style is set to `true', it  is
	      always  added.   Note  that  the style will be examined with the
	      completer field in  the  context	name  set  to  correct-num  or
	      approximate-num,	where  num  is	the number of errors that were
	      accepted.

       packageset
	      This style is used  when	completing  arguments  of  the	Debian
	      `dpkg' program.  It contains an override for the default package
	      set for a given context.	For example,

		     zstyle ':completion:*:complete:dpkg:option--status-1:*' \
				    packageset avail

	      causes available packages, rather than only installed  packages,
	      to be completed for `dpkg --status'.

       path   The function that completes color names uses this style with the
	      colors tag.  The value should be the pathname of a file contain‐
	      ing  color  names	 in the format of an X11 rgb.txt file.	If the
	      style is not set but this file is found in one of various	 stan‐
	      dard locations it will be used as the default.

       path-completion
	      This  is used by filename completion.  By default, filename com‐
	      pletion examines all components of a path to see	if  there  are
	      completions  of that component.  For example, /u/b/z can be com‐
	      pleted to /usr/bin/zsh.  Explicitly setting this style to	 false
	      inhibits	this  behaviour for path components up to the / before
	      the cursor; this overrides the setting of accept-exact-dirs.

	      Even with the style set to false, it is still possible  to  com‐
	      plete  multiple paths by setting the option COMPLETE_IN_WORD and
	      moving the cursor back to the first component in the path to  be
	      completed.  For example, /u/b/z can be completed to /usr/bin/zsh
	      if the cursor is after the /u.

       pine-directory
	      If set, specifies the directory containing PINE  mailbox	files.
	      There  is no default, since recursively searching this directory
	      is inconvenient for anyone who doesn't use PINE.

       ports  A list of Internet service names (network	 ports)	 to  complete.
	      If  this	is  not	 set,  service	names  are taken from the file
	      `/etc/services'.

       prefix-hidden
	      This is used for certain completions which share a  common  pre‐
	      fix,  for	 example command options beginning with dashes.	 If it
	      is `true', the prefix will not be shown in the list of matches.

	      The default value for this style is `false'.

       prefix-needed
	      This style is also relevant for matches with  a  common  prefix.
	      If  it  is set to `true' this common prefix must be typed by the
	      user to generate the matches.

	      The style is applicable to the  options,	signals,  jobs,	 func‐
	      tions, and parameters completion tags.

	      For  command  options,  this means that the initial `-', `+', or
	      `--' must be typed explicitly before option names will  be  com‐
	      pleted.

	      For signals, an initial `-' is required before signal names will
	      be completed.

	      For jobs, an initial `%' is required before job  names  will  be
	      completed.

	      For  function  and  parameter  names,  an	 initial `_' or `.' is
	      required before function or parameter names starting with	 those
	      characters will be completed.

	      The  default  value  for	this style is `false' for function and
	      parameter completions, and  `true' otherwise.

       preserve-prefix
	      This style is used when completing path names.  Its value should
	      be  a pattern matching an initial prefix of the word to complete
	      that should be left  unchanged  under  all  circumstances.   For
	      example,	on  some  Unices  an initial `//' (double slash) has a
	      special meaning; setting this style to the string `//' will pre‐
	      serve it.	 As another example, setting this style to `?:/' under
	      Cygwin would allow completion after `a:/...' and so on.

       range  This is used by the _history  completer  and  the	 _history_com‐
	      plete_word bindable command to decide which words should be com‐
	      pleted.

	      If it is a singe number, only the last N words from the  history
	      will be completed.

	      If  it  is a range of the form `max:slice', the last slice words
	      will be completed; then if that yields  no  matches,  the	 slice
	      words  before those will be tried and so on.  This process stops
	      either when at least one match was been found, or max words have
	      been tried.

	      The default is to complete all words from the history at once.

       recursive-files
	      If  this	style  is set, its value is an array of patterns to be
	      tested against `$PWD/': note the trailing	 slash,	 which	allows
	      directories  in  the  pattern  to	 be delimited unambiguously by
	      including slashes on both sides.	If an ordinary file completion
	      fails  and  the  word  on	 the  command line does not yet have a
	      directory part to its name, the style  is	 retrieved  using  the
	      same tag as for the completion just attempted, then the elements
	      tested against $PWD/ in turn.  If one matches,  then  the	 shell
	      reattempts completion by prepending the word on the command line
	      with each directory in the expansion of **/*(/) in turn.	 Typi‐
	      cally the elements of the style will be set to restrict the num‐
	      ber of directories beneath the current one to a manageable  num‐
	      ber, for example `*/.git/*'.

	      For example,

		     zstyle ':completion:*' recursive-files '*/zsh/*'

	      If  the  current	directory is /home/pws/zsh/Src, then zle_trTAB
	      can be completed to Zle/zle_tricky.c.

       regular
	      This style is used by the _expand_alias completer	 and  bindable
	      command.	 If  set to `true' (the default), regular aliases will
	      be expanded but only in command  position.   If  it  is  set  to
	      `false',	regular aliases will never be expanded.	  If it is set
	      to `always', regular aliases will be expanded  even  if  not  in
	      command position.

       rehash If  this	is set when completing external commands, the internal
	      list (hash) of commands will be updated for each search by issu‐
	      ing the rehash command.  There is a speed penalty for this which
	      is only likely to be noticeable when  directories	 in  the  path
	      have slow file access.

       remote-access
	      If  set to false, certain commands will be prevented from making
	      Internet	connections  to	 retrieve  remote  information.	  This
	      includes the completion for the CVS command.

	      It  is not always possible to know if connections are in fact to
	      a remote site, so some may be prevented unnecessarily.

       remove-all-dups
	      The _history_complete_word bindable  command  and	 the  _history
	      completer	 use this to decide if all duplicate matches should be
	      removed, rather than just consecutive duplicates.

       select-prompt
	      If this is set for the default tag, its value will be  displayed
	      during  menu  selection (see the menu style above) when the com‐
	      pletion list does not fit on the screen as a  whole.   The  same
	      escapes as for the list-prompt style are understood, except that
	      the numbers refer to the match  or  line	the  mark  is  on.   A
	      default prompt is used when the value is the empty string.

       select-scroll
	      This  style  is  tested for the default tag and determines how a
	      completion list is scrolled during a  menu  selection  (see  the
	      menu  style  above) when the completion list does not fit on the
	      screen as a whole.  If the value is  `0'	(zero),	 the  list  is
	      scrolled	by  half-screenfuls;  if it is a positive integer, the
	      list is scrolled by the given number of lines; if it is a	 nega‐
	      tive number, the list is scrolled by a screenful minus the abso‐
	      lute value of the given number of	 lines.	  The  default	is  to
	      scroll by single lines.

       separate-sections
	      This style is used with the manuals tag when completing names of
	      manual pages.  If it is `true', entries for  different  sections
	      are  added  separately  using  tag names of the form `manual.X',
	      where X is the section number.  When  the	 group-name  style  is
	      also  in effect, pages from different sections will appear sepa‐
	      rately.  This style is also used similarly with the words	 style
	      when completing words for the dict command. It allows words from
	      different dictionary databases  to  be  added  separately.   The
	      default for this style is `false'.

       show-completer
	      Tested  whenever	a  new completer is tried.  If it is true, the
	      completion system outputs a progress message in the listing area
	      showing  what  completer	is  being  tried.  The message will be
	      overwritten by any output when  completions  are	found  and  is
	      removed after completion is finished.

       single-ignored
	      This  is	used  by the _ignored completer when there is only one
	      match.  If its value is `show', the single match	will  be  dis‐
	      played  but not inserted.	 If the value is `menu', then the sin‐
	      gle match and the original string are both added as matches  and
	      menu  completion	is started, making it easy to select either of
	      them.

       sort   Many completion widgets call _description at  some  point	 which
	      decides  whether the matches are added sorted or unsorted (often
	      indirectly via _wanted or _requested).  This style  can  be  set
	      explicitly  to one of the usual true or false values as an over‐
	      ride.  If it is not set for the context, the standard  behaviour
	      of the calling widget is used.

	      The style is tested first against the full context including the
	      tag, and if that fails to produce a value	 against  the  context
	      without the tag.

	      If the calling widget explicitly requests unsorted matches, this
	      is usually honoured.  However, the default (unsorted)  behaviour
	      of  completion for the command history may be overridden by set‐
	      ting the style to true.

	      In the _expand completer, if it is set to `true', the expansions
	      generated	 will  always be sorted.  If it is set to `menu', then
	      the expansions are only sorted when they are offered  as	single
	      strings  but  not	 in  the string containing all possible expan‐
	      sions.

       special-dirs
	      Normally, the completion code will  not  produce	the  directory
	      names  `.'  and  `..' as possible completions.  If this style is
	      set to `true', it will add both `.' and `..' as possible comple‐
	      tions; if it is set to `..', only `..' will be added.

	      The following example sets special-dirs to `..' when the current
	      prefix is empty, is a single `.', or consists  only  of  a  path
	      beginning with `../'.  Otherwise the value is `false'.

		     zstyle -e ':completion:*' special-dirs \
			'[[ $PREFIX = (../)#(|.|..) ]] && reply=(..)'

       squeeze-slashes
	      If  set  to  `true', sequences of slashes in filename paths (for
	      example in `foo//bar') will be treated as a single slash.	  This
	      is  the  usual behaviour of UNIX paths.  However, by default the
	      file completion function behaves as if there were a `*'  between
	      the slashes.

       stop   If  set  to  `true', the _history_complete_word bindable command
	      will stop once when reaching the beginning or end	 of  the  his‐
	      tory.   Invoking _history_complete_word will then wrap around to
	      the opposite end of the  history.	  If  this  style  is  set  to
	      `false'  (the default), _history_complete_word will loop immedi‐
	      ately as in a menu completion.

       strip-comments
	      If set to `true', this style causes non-essential	 comment  text
	      to  be  removed  from  completion matches.  Currently it is only
	      used when completing e-mail addresses where it removes any  dis‐
	      play  name  from	the  addresses,	 cutting  them	down  to plain
	      user@host form.

       subst-globs-only
	      This is used by the _expand completer.  If it is set to  `true',
	      the  expansion  will  only be used if it resulted from globbing;
	      hence, if expansions resulted from the  use  of  the  substitute
	      style  described	below,	but  these were not further changed by
	      globbing, the expansions will be rejected.

	      The default for this style is `false'.

       substitute
	      This boolean style controls whether the _expand  completer  will
	      first  try  to  expand  all substitutions in the string (such as
	      `$(...)' and `${...}').

	      The default is `true'.

       suffix This is used by the _expand completer if the word starts with  a
	      tilde  or	 contains  a  parameter	 expansion.   If  it is set to
	      `true', the word will only be expanded if it doesn't have a suf‐
	      fix,  i.e.  if it is something like `~foo' or `$foo' rather than
	      `~foo/' or `$foo/bar', unless that suffix itself contains	 char‐
	      acters  eligible	for  expansion.	 The default for this style is
	      `true'.

       tag-order
	      This provides a mechanism for sorting how the tags available  in
	      a particular context will be used.

	      The  values  for	the style are sets of space-separated lists of
	      tags.  The tags in each value will be tried at the same time; if
	      no  match	 is found, the next value is used.  (See the file-pat‐
	      terns style for an exception to this behavior.)

	      For example:

		     zstyle ':completion:*:complete:-command-:*' tag-order \
			 'commands functions'

	      specifies that  completion  in  command  position	 first	offers
	      external	commands  and shell functions.	Remaining tags will be
	      tried if no completions are found.

	      In addition to tag names, each string in the value may take  one
	      of the following forms:

	      -	     If	 any  value  consists  of only a hyphen, then only the
		     tags specified in the other values are  generated.	  Nor‐
		     mally  all tags not explicitly selected are tried last if
		     the specified tags fail to generate  any  matches.	  This
		     means  that  a  single  value consisting only of a single
		     hyphen turns off completion.

	      ! tags...
		     A string starting	with  an  exclamation  mark  specifies
		     names of tags that are not to be used.  The effect is the
		     same as if all other possible tags for  the  context  had
		     been listed.

	      tag:label ...
		     Here,  tag	 is  one  of the standard tags and label is an
		     arbitrary name.  Matches are generated as normal but  the
		     name  label  is used in contexts instead of tag.  This is
		     not useful in words starting with !.

		     If the label starts with a hyphen, the tag	 is  prepended
		     to	 the label to form the name used for lookup.  This can
		     be used to make the completion system try a  certain  tag
		     more  than	 once,	supplying different style settings for
		     each attempt; see below for an example.

	      tag:label:description
		     As before, but description will replace the `%d'  in  the
		     value of the format style instead of the default descrip‐
		     tion supplied by the completion function.	Spaces in  the
		     description  must	be  quoted  with  a backslash.	A `%d'
		     appearing in description is replaced with the description
		     given by the completion function.

	      In  any  of  the forms above the tag may be a pattern or several
	      patterns in the form `{pat1,pat2...}'.  In this case all	match‐
	      ing  tags	 will  be  used except for any given explicitly in the
	      same string.

	      One use of these features is to try one tag more than once, set‐
	      ting  other styles differently on each attempt, but still to use
	      all the other tags without having to repeat them all.  For exam‐
	      ple,  to	make  completion of function names in command position
	      ignore all the completion functions starting with an  underscore
	      the first time completion is tried:

		     zstyle ':completion:*:*:-command-:*' tag-order \
			 'functions:-non-comp *' functions
		     zstyle ':completion:*:functions-non-comp' ignored-patterns '_*'

	      On the first attempt, all tags will be offered but the functions
	      tag will be replaced by  functions-non-comp.   The  ignored-pat‐
	      terns  style  is	set for this tag to exclude functions starting
	      with an underscore.  If there are no matches, the	 second	 value
	      of  the  tag-order style is used which completes functions using
	      the default tag, this time  presumably  including	 all  function
	      names.

	      The matches for one tag can be split into different groups.  For
	      example:

		     zstyle ':completion:*' tag-order \
			 'options:-long:long\ options
			  options:-short:short\ options
			  options:-single-letter:single\ letter\ options'

		     zstyle ':completion:*:options-long' ignored-patterns '[-+](|-|[^-]*)'
		     zstyle ':completion:*:options-short' ignored-patterns '--*' '[-+]?'
		     zstyle ':completion:*:options-single-letter' ignored-patterns '???*'

	      With the group-names style set,  options	beginning  with	 `--',
	      options beginning with a single `-' or `+' but containing multi‐
	      ple characters, and single-letter options will be	 displayed  in
	      separate groups with different descriptions.

	      Another  use of patterns is to try multiple match specifications
	      one after another.  The matcher-list style offers something sim‐
	      ilar,  but  it is tested very early in the completion system and
	      hence can't be set for single commands  nor  for	more  specific
	      contexts.	  Here	is  how	 to  try normal completion without any
	      match specification and, if that generates no matches, try again
	      with  case-insensitive matching, restricting the effect to argu‐
	      ments of the command foo:

		     zstyle ':completion:*:*:foo:*' tag-order '*' '*:-case'
		     zstyle ':completion:*-case' matcher 'm:{a-z}={A-Z}'

	      First, all the tags offered when completing after foo are	 tried
	      using  the  normal  tag name.  If that generates no matches, the
	      second value of tag-order is used, which tries  all  tags	 again
	      except  that  this  time each has -case appended to its name for
	      lookup of styles.	 Hence this time the  value  for  the  matcher
	      style  from  the second call to zstyle in the example is used to
	      make completion case-insensitive.

	      It is possible to use the -e option of the zstyle	 builtin  com‐
	      mand  to specify conditions for the use of particular tags.  For
	      example:

		     zstyle -e '*:-command-:*' tag-order '
			 if [[ -n $PREFIX$SUFFIX ]]; then
			   reply=( )
			 else
			   reply=( - )
			 fi'

	      Completion in command position will be  attempted	 only  if  the
	      string typed so far is not empty.	 This is tested using the PRE‐
	      FIX special parameter;  see  zshcompwid  for  a  description  of
	      parameters which are special inside completion widgets.  Setting
	      reply to an empty array provides the default behaviour of trying
	      all  tags	 at  once;  setting  it	 to an array containing only a
	      hyphen disables the use of all tags and  hence  of  all  comple‐
	      tions.

	      If  no  tag-order	 style	has  been  defined  for a context, the
	      strings `(|*-)argument-*	(|*-)option-*  values'	and  `options'
	      plus all tags offered by the completion function will be used to
	      provide  a  sensible  default  behavior  that  causes  arguments
	      (whether normal command arguments or arguments of options) to be
	      completed before option names for most commands.

       urls   This is used together with the urls tag by functions  completing
	      URLs.

	      If  the  value  consists of more than one string, or if the only
	      string does not name a file or directory, the strings  are  used
	      as the URLs to complete.

	      If  the  value  contains	only one string which is the name of a
	      normal file the URLs are taken from that file  (where  the  URLs
	      may be separated by white space or newlines).

	      Finally,	if the only string in the value names a directory, the
	      directory hierarchy rooted at this directory gives  the  comple‐
	      tions.   The  top	 level	directory  should  be  the file access
	      method, such as `http', `ftp', `bookmark' and so	on.   In  many
	      cases  the  next	level  of directories will be a filename.  The
	      directory hierarchy can descend as deep as necessary.

	      For example,

		     zstyle ':completion:*' urls ~/.urls
		     mkdir -p ~/.urls/ftp/ftp.zsh.org/pub

	      allows  completion  of   all   the   components	of   the   URL
	      ftp://ftp.zsh.org/pub after suitable commands such as `netscape'
	      or `lynx'.  Note, however, that access  methods  and  files  are
	      completed	 separately, so if the hosts style is set hosts can be
	      completed without reference to the urls style.

	      See the description in the function _urls itself for more infor‐
	      mation (e.g. `more $^fpath/_urls(N)').

       use-cache
	      If  this	is  set, the completion caching layer is activated for
	      any  completions	 which	 use   it   (via   the	 _store_cache,
	      _retrieve_cache,	and  _cache_invalid functions).	 The directory
	      containing the cache files can be changed	 with  the  cache-path
	      style.

       use-compctl
	      If  this style is set to a string not equal to false, 0, no, and
	      off, the completion system may use any completion specifications
	      defined  with  the  compctl  builtin  command.   If the style is
	      unset, this is done only if the zsh/compctl  module  is  loaded.
	      The string may also contain the substring `first' to use comple‐
	      tions defined with `compctl -T', and the substring `default'  to
	      use the completion defined with `compctl -D'.

	      Note  that  this	is only intended to smooth the transition from
	      compctl to the new completion system and may  disappear  in  the
	      future.

	      Note also that the definitions from compctl will only be used if
	      there is no specific completion  function	 for  the  command  in
	      question.	  For example, if there is a function _foo to complete
	      arguments to the command foo, compctl will never be invoked  for
	      foo.   However,  the  compctl  version will be tried if foo only
	      uses default completion.

       use-ip By default, the function _hosts that completes host names strips
	      IP  addresses  from entries read from host databases such as NIS
	      and ssh files.  If this style  is	 true,	the  corresponding  IP
	      addresses	 can  be  completed as well.  This style is not use in
	      any context where the hosts style is set; note also it  must  be
	      set  before  the cache of host names is generated (typically the
	      first completion attempt).

       users  This may be set to a list of usernames to be completed.	If  it
	      is  not set all usernames will be completed.  Note that if it is
	      set only that list of users will be completed; this  is  because
	      on some systems querying all users can take a prohibitive amount
	      of time.

       users-hosts
	      The values of this style should be of the	 form  `user@host'  or
	      `user:host'.  It	is  used for commands that need pairs of user-
	      and hostnames.  These commands will complete usernames from this
	      style  (only),  and will restrict subsequent hostname completion
	      to hosts paired with that user in	 one  of  the  values  of  the
	      style.

	      It  is possible to group values for sets of commands which allow
	      a remote login, such as rlogin and ssh, by using the my-accounts
	      tag.  Similarly, values for sets of commands which usually refer
	      to the accounts of other people, such as talk and finger, can be
	      grouped  by  using the other-accounts tag.  More ambivalent com‐
	      mands may use the accounts tag.

       users-hosts-ports
	      Like users-hosts but used for commands like telnet and  contain‐
	      ing strings of the form `user@host:port'.

       verbose
	      If set, as it is by default, the completion listing is more ver‐
	      bose.  In particular many commands show descriptions for options
	      if this style is `true'.

       word   This  is	used by the _list completer, which prevents the inser‐
	      tion of completions until a second completion attempt  when  the
	      line has not changed.  The normal way of finding out if the line
	      has changed is to compare its entire contents  between  the  two
	      occasions.   If  this  style  is true, the comparison is instead
	      performed only on the current word.  Hence if completion is per‐
	      formed  on  another word with the same contents, completion will
	      not be delayed.

CONTROL FUNCTIONS
       The initialization script compinit redefines all the widgets which per‐
       form  completion	 to  call the supplied widget function _main_complete.
       This function acts as a wrapper calling the so-called `completer' func‐
       tions  that  generate  matches.	If _main_complete is called with argu‐
       ments, these are taken as the names of completer functions to be called
       in the order given.  If no arguments are given, the set of functions to
       try is taken from the completer style.  For example, to use normal com‐
       pletion and correction if that doesn't generate any matches:

	      zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _correct

       after  calling compinit. The default value for this style is `_complete
       _ignored', i.e. normally only ordinary completion is tried, first  with
       the  effect  of	the  ignored-patterns  style and then without it.  The
       _main_complete function uses the return status of the  completer	 func‐
       tions  to  decide  if other completers should be called.	 If the return
       status is zero, no other completers are tried  and  the	_main_complete
       function returns.

       If  the	first argument to _main_complete is a single hyphen, the argu‐
       ments will not be taken as names of completers.	 Instead,  the	second
       argument	 gives a name to use in the completer field of the context and
       the other arguments give a command name and arguments to call to gener‐
       ate the matches.

       The  following  completer  functions are contained in the distribution,
       although users may write their own.  Note that in contexts the  leading
       underscore  is  stripped,  for example basic completion is performed in
       the context `:completion::complete:...'.

       _all_matches
	      This completer can be used to add a  string  consisting  of  all
	      other matches.  As it influences later completers it must appear
	      as the first completer in the list.  The list of all matches  is
	      affected by the avoid-completer and old-matches styles described
	      above.

	      It may be useful to use the _generic function described below to
	      bind _all_matches to its own keystroke, for example:

		     zle -C all-matches complete-word _generic
		     bindkey '^Xa' all-matches
		     zstyle ':completion:all-matches:*' old-matches only
		     zstyle ':completion:all-matches::::' completer _all_matches

	      Note  that  this does not generate completions by itself:	 first
	      use any of the standard ways of generating  a  list  of  comple‐
	      tions, then use ^Xa to show all matches.	It is possible instead
	      to add a standard completer to the list  and  request  that  the
	      list of all matches should be directly inserted:

		     zstyle ':completion:all-matches::::' completer _all_matches _complete
		     zstyle ':completion:all-matches:*' insert true

	      In this case the old-matches style should not be set.

       _approximate
	      This  is similar to the basic _complete completer but allows the
	      completions to  undergo  corrections.   The  maximum  number  of
	      errors  can  be  specified  by  the  max-errors  style;  see the
	      description of approximate matching in zshexpn(1) for how errors
	      are  counted.   Normally this completer will only be tried after
	      the normal _complete completer:

		     zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _approximate

	      This will give correcting completion if and only if normal  com‐
	      pletion  yields no possible completions.	When corrected comple‐
	      tions are found, the completer will normally start menu  comple‐
	      tion allowing you to cycle through these strings.

	      This  completer uses the tags corrections and original when gen‐
	      erating the possible corrections and the original	 string.   The
	      format style for the former may contain the additional sequences
	      `%e' and `%o' which will be replaced by  the  number  of	errors
	      accepted	to  generate  the corrections and the original string,
	      respectively.

	      The completer  progressively  increases  the  number  of	errors
	      allowed up to the limit by the max-errors style, hence if a com‐
	      pletion is found with one error, no completions with two	errors
	      will be shown, and so on.	 It modifies the completer name in the
	      context to indicate the number of errors	being  tried:  on  the
	      first  try  the completer field contains `approximate-1', on the
	      second try `approximate-2', and so on.

	      When _approximate is called from another function, the number of
	      errors to accept may be passed with the -a option.  The argument
	      is in the same format  as	 the  max-errors  style,  all  in  one
	      string.

	      Note  that  this completer (and the _correct completer mentioned
	      below) can be quite expensive to call, especially when  a	 large
	      number  of  errors are allowed.  One way to avoid this is to set
	      up the completer style using the -e option  to  zstyle  so  that
	      some  completers	are  only  used when completion is attempted a
	      second time on the same string, e.g.:

		     zstyle -e ':completion:*' completer '
		       if [[ $_last_try != "$HISTNO$BUFFER$CURSOR" ]]; then
			 _last_try="$HISTNO$BUFFER$CURSOR"
			 reply=(_complete _match _prefix)
		       else
			 reply=(_ignored _correct _approximate)
		       fi'

	      This uses the HISTNO parameter and the BUFFER and CURSOR special
	      parameters  that are available inside zle and completion widgets
	      to find out if the command line hasn't changed  since  the  last
	      time completion was tried.  Only then are the _ignored, _correct
	      and _approximate completers called.

       _complete
	      This completer generates all  possible  completions  in  a  con‐
	      text-sensitive  manner, i.e. using the settings defined with the
	      compdef function explained above and the current settings of all
	      special parameters.  This gives the normal completion behaviour.

	      To  complete  arguments  of commands, _complete uses the utility
	      function _normal, which is in turn responsible for  finding  the
	      particular function; it is described below.  Various contexts of
	      the form -context- are handled specifically. These are all  men‐
	      tioned above as possible arguments to the #compdef tag.

	      Before  trying  to find a function for a specific context, _com‐
	      plete checks if the  parameter  `compcontext'  is	 set.  Setting
	      `compcontext'  allows  the  usual	 completion  dispatching to be
	      overridden which is useful in places such	 as  a	function  that
	      uses vared for input. If it is set to an array, the elements are
	      taken to be the possible matches which will be  completed	 using
	      the tag `values' and the description `value'. If it is set to an
	      associative array, the keys are used as the possible completions
	      and  the	values (if non-empty) are used as descriptions for the
	      matches.	If `compcontext' is set to a string containing colons,
	      it  should  be of the form `tag:descr:action'.  In this case the
	      tag and descr give the tag and description to use and the action
	      indicates	 what should be completed in one of the forms accepted
	      by the _arguments utility function described below.

	      Finally, if `compcontext' is set to a string without colons, the
	      value  is	 taken as the name of the context to use and the func‐
	      tion defined for that context will be called.  For this purpose,
	      there  is	 a special context named -command-line- that completes
	      whole command lines (commands and their arguments).  This is not
	      used  by the completion system itself but is nonetheless handled
	      when explicitly called.

       _correct
	      Generate corrections, but not completions, for the current word;
	      this is similar to _approximate but will not allow any number of
	      extra characters at the cursor  as  that	completer  does.   The
	      effect  is  similar to spell-checking.  It is based on _approxi‐
	      mate, but the completer field in the context name is correct.

	      For example, with:

		     zstyle ':completion:::::' completer _complete _correct _approximate
		     zstyle ':completion:*:correct:::' max-errors 2 not-numeric
		     zstyle ':completion:*:approximate:::' max-errors 3 numeric

	      correction will accept up to two errors.	If a numeric  argument
	      is  given, correction will not be performed, but correcting com‐
	      pletion will be, and will accept as many errors as given by  the
	      numeric  argument.  Without a numeric argument, first correction
	      and then correcting completion will be tried, with the first one
	      accepting two errors and the second one accepting three errors.

	      When  _correct  is called as a function, the number of errors to
	      accept may be given following the -a option.  The argument is in
	      the same form a values to the accept style, all in one string.

	      This  completer  function	 is  intended  to  be used without the
	      _approximate completer or, as in the example,  just  before  it.
	      Using  it	 after	the  _approximate  completer  is useless since
	      _approximate will at least generate the corrected strings gener‐
	      ated by the _correct completer -- and probably more.

       _expand
	      This  completer function does not really perform completion, but
	      instead checks if the word on the command line is	 eligible  for
	      expansion	 and,  if  it is, gives detailed control over how this
	      expansion is done.  For this to happen,  the  completion	system
	      needs  to	 be invoked with complete-word, not expand-or-complete
	      (the default binding for TAB), as otherwise the string  will  be
	      expanded by the shell's internal mechanism before the completion
	      system is started.  Note also this completer  should  be	called
	      before the _complete completer function.

	      The  tags used when generating expansions are all-expansions for
	      the string containing all possible expansions,  expansions  when
	      adding  the  possible  expansions as single matches and original
	      when adding the original string from the	line.	The  order  in
	      which  these strings are generated, if at all, can be controlled
	      by the group-order and tag-order styles, as usual.

	      The format string for all-expansions and for expansions may con‐
	      tain  the	 sequence  `%o' which will be replaced by the original
	      string from the line.

	      The kind of expansion to be tried is controlled by  the  substi‐
	      tute, glob and subst-globs-only styles.

	      It is also possible to call _expand as a function, in which case
	      the different modes may be selected with options: -s for substi‐
	      tute, -g for glob and -o for subst-globs-only.

       _expand_alias
	      If  the word the cursor is on is an alias, it is expanded and no
	      other completers are called.  The types of aliases which are  to
	      be  expanded  can	 be controlled with the styles regular, global
	      and disabled.

	      This function is also a bindable command, see the section `Bind‐
	      able Commands' below.

       _history
	      Complete	words  from  the  shell's command  history.  This com‐
	      pleter can be controlled by the remove-all-dups, and sort styles
	      as for the _history_complete_word bindable command, see the sec‐
	      tion `Bindable Commands' below and the section `Completion  Sys‐
	      tem Configuration' above.

       _ignored
	      The  ignored-patterns  style  can	 be  set to a list of patterns
	      which are compared against possible completions;	matching  ones
	      are  removed.   With  this  completer those matches can be rein‐
	      stated, as if no ignored-patterns style were set.	 The completer
	      actually generates its own list of matches; which completers are
	      invoked is determined in the same way as for  the	 _prefix  com‐
	      pleter.  The single-ignored style is also available as described
	      above.

       _list  This completer allows the insertion of  matches  to  be  delayed
	      until  completion is attempted a second time without the word on
	      the line being changed.  On the first attempt, only the list  of
	      matches  will  be shown.	It is affected by the styles condition
	      and word, see  the  section  `Completion	System	Configuration'
	      above.

       _match This  completer  is intended to be used after the _complete com‐
	      pleter.  It behaves similarly but the string on the command line
	      may be a pattern to match against trial completions.  This gives
	      the effect of the GLOB_COMPLETE option.

	      Normally completion will be performed by taking the pattern from
	      the  line,  inserting a `*' at the cursor position and comparing
	      the resulting pattern with the possible  completions  generated.
	      This  can	 be  modified  with the match-original style described
	      above.

	      The generated matches will  be  offered  in  a  menu  completion
	      unless  the  insert-unambiguous  style is set to `true'; see the
	      description above for other options for this style.

	      Note that matcher specifications defined globally or used by the
	      completion  functions (the styles matcher-list and matcher) will
	      not be used.

       _menu  This completer was written as simple example  function  to  show
	      how  menu	 completion  can be enabled in shell code. However, it
	      has the notable effect of disabling menu selection which can  be
	      useful  with  _generic  based  widgets. It should be used as the
	      first completer in the list.  Note that this is  independent  of
	      the  setting  of the MENU_COMPLETE option and does not work with
	      the other menu completion widgets such as reverse-menu-complete,
	      or accept-and-menu-complete.

       _oldlist
	      This  completer  controls	 how  the  standard completion widgets
	      behave when there is an existing list of completions  which  may
	      have  been  generated  by	 a  special  completion	 (i.e. a sepa‐
	      rately-bound completion command).	 It allows the	ordinary  com‐
	      pletion  keys  to	 continue  to use the list of completions thus
	      generated, instead of producing a new list of  ordinary  contex‐
	      tual  completions.   It  should appear in the list of completers
	      before any of the widgets which generate matches.	 It  uses  two
	      styles:  old-list and old-menu, see the section `Completion Sys‐
	      tem Configuration' above.

       _prefix
	      This completer can be used to try	 completion  with  the	suffix
	      (everything after the cursor) ignored.  In other words, the suf‐
	      fix will not be considered to be part of the word	 to  complete.
	      The effect is similar to the expand-or-complete-prefix command.

	      The completer style is used to decide which other completers are
	      to be called to generate matches.	 If this style is  unset,  the
	      list  of	completers  set	 for  the  current  context is used --
	      except, of course, the _prefix completer	itself.	  Furthermore,
	      if  this	completer  appears  more than once in the list of com‐
	      pleters only those completers not	 already  tried	 by  the  last
	      invocation of _prefix will be called.

	      For example, consider this global completer style:

		     zstyle ':completion:*' completer \
			 _complete _prefix _correct _prefix:foo

	      Here, the _prefix completer tries normal completion but ignoring
	      the suffix.  If that doesn't generate any matches,  and  neither
	      does  the	 call to the _correct completer after it, _prefix will
	      be called a second time and, now only trying correction with the
	      suffix  ignored.	On the second invocation the completer part of
	      the context appears as `foo'.

	      To use _prefix as the last resort and try only normal completion
	      when it is invoked:

		     zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete ... _prefix
		     zstyle ':completion::prefix:*' completer _complete

	      The  add-space  style is also respected.	If it is set to `true'
	      then _prefix will insert a space between the  matches  generated
	      (if any) and the suffix.

	      Note  that this completer is only useful if the COMPLETE_IN_WORD
	      option is set; otherwise, the cursor will be moved to the end of
	      the  current word before the completion code is called and hence
	      there will be no suffix.

       _user_expand
	      This completer behaves similarly to the  _expand	completer  but
	      instead  performs	 expansions  defined  by  users.   The	styles
	      add-space and sort styles specific to the _expand completer  are
	      usable  with  _user_expand  in  addition to other styles handled
	      more generally by the completion system.	The tag all-expansions
	      is also available.

	      The  expansion  depends  on  the	array  style user-expand being
	      defined for the current context; remember that the  context  for
	      completers  is less specific than that for contextual completion
	      as the full context has not yet been  determined.	  Elements  of
	      the array may have one of the following forms:
	      $hash

		     hash  is  the name of an associative array.  Note this is
		     not a full parameter expression,  merely  a  $,  suitably
		     quoted  to	 prevent  immediate expansion, followed by the
		     name of an associative array.   If	 the  trial  expansion
		     word  matches  a  key in hash, the resulting expansion is
		     the corresponding value.
	      _func

		     _func is the name of a shell  function  whose  name  must
		     begin  with _ but is not otherwise special to the comple‐
		     tion system.  The function is called with the trial  word
		     as an argument.  If the word is to be expanded, the func‐
		     tion should set the array reply to a list of  expansions.
		     Optionally,  it can set REPLY to a word that will be used
		     as a description for the set of expansions.   The	return
		     status of the function is irrelevant.
BINDABLE COMMANDS
       In  addition  to	 the context-dependent completions provided, which are
       expected to work in an intuitively obvious way, there are a few widgets
       implementing  special  behaviour which can be bound separately to keys.
       The following is a list of these and their default bindings.

       _bash_completions
	      This function is used by two  widgets,  _bash_complete-word  and
	      _bash_list-choices.   It	exists	to  provide compatibility with
	      completion bindings in bash.  The last character of the  binding
	      determines  what is completed: `!', command names; `$', environ‐
	      ment variables; `@', host	 names;	 `/',  file  names;  `~'  user
	      names.   In bash, the binding preceded by `\e' gives completion,
	      and preceded by `^X' lists options.  As some of  these  bindings
	      clash with standard zsh bindings, only `\e~' and `^X~' are bound
	      by default.  To add the rest, the following should be  added  to
	      .zshrc after compinit has been run:

		     for key in '!' '$' '@' '/' '~'; do
		       bindkey "\e$key" _bash_complete-word
		       bindkey "^X$key" _bash_list-choices
		     done

	      This  includes  the  bindings  for `~' in case they were already
	      bound to something else; the completion code does	 not  override
	      user bindings.

       _correct_filename (^XC)
	      Correct  the filename path at the cursor position.  Allows up to
	      six errors in the name.  Can also be called with an argument  to
	      correct a filename path, independently of zle; the correction is
	      printed on standard output.

       _correct_word (^Xc)
	      Performs correction of the current argument using the usual con‐
	      textual  completions as possible choices. This stores the string
	      `correct-word' in the function field of  the  context  name  and
	      then calls the _correct completer.

       _expand_alias (^Xa)
	      This  function can be used as a completer and as a bindable com‐
	      mand.  It expands the word the cursor is on if it is  an	alias.
	      The  types  of  alias expanded can be controlled with the styles
	      regular, global and disabled.

	      When used as a bindable command there is one additional  feature
	      that  can	 be  selected by setting the complete style to `true'.
	      In this case,  if	 the  word  is	not  the  name	of  an	alias,
	      _expand_alias  tries  to	complete the word to a full alias name
	      without expanding it.  It leaves the cursor directly  after  the
	      completed	 word  so  that	 invoking _expand_alias once more will
	      expand the now-complete alias name.

       _expand_word (^Xe)
	      Performs expansion on the current word:  equivalent to the stan‐
	      dard  expand-word	 command,  but	using  the  _expand completer.
	      Before calling it, the function field of the context is  set  to
	      `expand-word'.

       _generic
	      This  function  is  not  defined	as  a  widget and not bound by
	      default.	However, it can be used to define a  widget  and  will
	      then  store  the name of the widget in the function field of the
	      context and call the completion system.  This allows custom com‐
	      pletion  widgets	with  their  own  set  of style settings to be
	      defined easily.  For example, to define a widget	that  performs
	      normal completion and starts menu selection:

		     zle -C foo complete-word _generic
		     bindkey '...' foo
		     zstyle ':completion:foo:*' menu yes select=1

	      Note  in	particular that the completer style may be set for the
	      context in order to change the set of functions used to generate
	      possible	matches.   If _generic is called with arguments, those
	      are passed through to _main_complete as the list	of  completers
	      in place of those defined by the completer style.

       _history_complete_word (\e/)
	      Complete	words  from the shell's command history. This uses the
	      list, remove-all-dups, sort, and stop styles.

       _most_recent_file (^Xm)
	      Complete the name of the most recently  modified	file  matching
	      the  pattern on the command line (which may be blank).  If given
	      a numeric argument N, complete the Nth  most  recently  modified
	      file.  Note the completion, if any, is always unique.

       _next_tags (^Xn)
	      This command alters the set of matches used to that for the next
	      tag, or set of tags, either as given by the tag-order  style  or
	      as  set  by default; these matches would otherwise not be avail‐
	      able.  Successive invocations of the command cycle  through  all
	      possible sets of tags.

       _read_comp (^X^R)
	      Prompt the user for a string, and use that to perform completion
	      on the current  word.   There  are  two  possibilities  for  the
	      string.	First,	it  can	 be  a set of words beginning `_', for
	      example `_files -/', in which case the function with  any	 argu‐
	      ments  will  be called to generate the completions.  Unambiguous
	      parts of the function name will be completed automatically (nor‐
	      mal  completion is not available at this point) until a space is
	      typed.

	      Second, any other string will be passed as a set of arguments to
	      compadd and should hence be an expression specifying what should
	      be completed.

	      A very restricted set of	editing	 commands  is  available  when
	      reading  the  string:  `DEL' and `^H' delete the last character;
	      `^U' deletes the line, and `^C' and  `^G'	 abort	the  function,
	      while  `RET'  accepts  the  completion.  Note the string is used
	      verbatim as a command line,  so  arguments  must	be  quoted  in
	      accordance with standard shell rules.

	      Once  a  string  has been read, the next call to _read_comp will
	      use the existing string instead of reading a new one.  To	 force
	      a	 new  string  to be read, call _read_comp with a numeric argu‐
	      ment.

       _complete_debug (^X?)
	      This widget performs ordinary completion, but captures in a tem‐
	      porary  file  a trace of the shell commands executed by the com‐
	      pletion system.  Each completion attempt gets its own  file.   A
	      command  to  view	 each of these files is pushed onto the editor
	      buffer stack.

       _complete_help (^Xh)
	      This widget displays information about the  context  names,  the
	      tags,  and  the completion functions used when completing at the
	      current cursor position. If given a numeric argument other  than
	      1 (as in `ESC-2 ^Xh'), then the styles used and the contexts for
	      which they are used will be shown, too.

	      Note that the information about styles  may  be  incomplete;  it
	      depends  on  the information available from the completion func‐
	      tions called, which in turn is  determined  by  the  user's  own
	      styles and other settings.

       _complete_help_generic
	      Unlike  other  commands  listed  here, this must be created as a
	      normal ZLE widget rather than a completion widget (i.e. with zle
	      -N).   It is used for generating help with a widget bound to the
	      _generic widget that is described above.

	      If this widget is created using the name of the function, as  it
	      is  by  default, then when executed it will read a key sequence.
	      This is expected to be bound to a call to a completion  function
	      that  uses  the  _generic widget.	 That widget will be executed,
	      and information provided in  the	same  format  that  the	 _com‐
	      plete_help widget displays for contextual completion.

	      If  the  widget's name contains debug, for example if it is cre‐
	      ated as `zle -N _complete_debug_generic _complete_help_generic',
	      it  will	read and execute the keystring for a generic widget as
	      before, but then generate debugging information as done by _com‐
	      plete_debug for contextual completion.

	      If  the  widget's	 name  contains	 noread,  it  will  not read a
	      keystring but instead arrange that the next  use	of  a  generic
	      widget  run  in the same shell will have the effect as described
	      above.

	      The   widget   works   by	  setting    the    shell    parameter
	      ZSH_TRACE_GENERIC_WIDGET	which  is read by _generic.  Unsetting
	      the parameter cancels any pending effect of the noread form.

	      For example, after executing the following:

		     zle -N _complete_debug_generic _complete_help_generic
		     bindkey '^x:' _complete_debug_generic

	      typing `C-x :' followed by the key sequence for a generic widget
	      will cause trace output for that widget to be saved to a file.

       _complete_tag (^Xt)
	      This  widget completes symbol tags created by the etags or ctags
	      programmes (note there is no connection with the completion sys‐
	      tem's  tags) stored in a file TAGS, in the format used by etags,
	      or tags, in the format created by ctags.	It will look  back  up
	      the  path	 hierarchy for the first occurrence of either file; if
	      both exist, the file TAGS is preferred.	You  can  specify  the
	      full path to a TAGS or tags file by setting the parameter $TAGS‐
	      FILE or $tagsfile respectively.	The  corresponding  completion
	      tags used are etags and vtags, after emacs and vi respectively.

UTILITY FUNCTIONS
       Descriptions follow for utility functions that may be useful when writ‐
       ing completion functions.  If functions are  installed  in  subdirecto‐
       ries,  most of these reside in the Base subdirectory.  Like the example
       functions for commands in the distribution, the utility functions  gen‐
       erating	matches	 all follow the convention of returning status zero if
       they generated completions and  non-zero	 if  no	 matching  completions
       could be added.

       Two  more  features  are	 offered  by the _main_complete function.  The
       arrays compprefuncs and comppostfuncs may contain  names	 of  functions
       that  are  to be called immediately before or after completion has been
       tried.  A function will only be called once unless it explicitly	 rein‐
       serts itself into the array.

       _all_labels [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ command args ... ]
	      This  is	a  convenient  interface  to  the _next_label function
	      below, implementing the loop shown in the	 _next_label  example.
	      The  command  and	 its  arguments	 are  called  to  generate the
	      matches.	The options stored in the parameter name will automat‐
	      ically  be  inserted  into the args passed to the command.  Nor‐
	      mally, they are put directly after the command, but  if  one  of
	      the  args	 is a single hyphen, they are inserted directly before
	      that.  If the hyphen is the last argument, it  will  be  removed
	      from  the	 argument  list	 before	 the  command is called.  This
	      allows _all_labels to be used in	almost	all  cases  where  the
	      matches can be generated by a single call to the compadd builtin
	      command or by a call to one of the utility functions.

	      For example:

		     local expl
		     ...
		     if _requested foo; then
		       ...
		       _all_labels foo expl '...' compadd ... - $matches
		     fi

	      Will complete the strings from the matches parameter, using com‐
	      padd  with  additional  options  which will take precedence over
	      those generated by _all_labels.

       _alternative [ -O name ] [ -C name ] spec ...
	      This function is useful in simple cases where multiple tags  are
	      available.   Essentially	it  implements	a  loop	 like  the one
	      described for the _tags function below.

	      The tags to use and the action to perform if a tag is  requested
	      are   described	using	the  specs  which  are	of  the	 form:
	      `tag:descr:action'.  The tags are offered using _tags and if the
	      tag is requested, the action is executed with the given descrip‐
	      tion descr.  The actions are those accepted  by  the  _arguments
	      function	(described  below), excluding the `->state' and `=...'
	      forms.

	      For example, the action may be a simple function call:

		     _alternative \
			 'users:user:_users' \
			 'hosts:host:_hosts'

	      offers usernames and hostnames as possible matches, generated by
	      the _users and _hosts functions respectively.

	      Like  _arguments,	 this function uses _all_labels to execute the
	      actions, which will loop over all sets of	 tags.	 Special  han‐
	      dling  is only required if there is an additional valid tag, for
	      example inside a function called from _alternative.

	      The option `-O name' is used in the same way as  by  the	_argu‐
	      ments  function.	In other words, the elements of the name array
	      will be passed to compadd when executing an action.

	      Like _tags this function supports the -C option to give  a  dif‐
	      ferent name for the argument context field.

       _arguments  [  -nswWCRS ] [ -A pat ] [ -O name ] [ -M matchspec ] [ : ]
       spec...
       _arguments [ opts... ] -- [ -i pats ] [ -s pair ] [ helpspec... ]
	      This function can be used to give a complete  specification  for
	      completion  for  a  command whose arguments follow standard UNIX
	      option and argument conventions.	Options to  _arguments	itself
	      must be in separate words, i.e. -s -w, not -sw.

	      When  calling _arguments, all specs that describe options of the
	      analyzed command line  must  precede  all	 specs	that  describe
	      non-option  (aka	"normal")  arguments of the analyzed line.  To
	      avoid ambiguity, all options to _arguments itself may  be	 sepa‐
	      rated from the spec forms by a single colon.

	      The  -s -w -W -A and -S options describe how parsing of the com‐
	      mand line should proceed, and are discussed  in  context	below.
	      The  `--' form is used to intuit spec forms from the help output
	      of the command being analyzed, and is described in detail below.
	      The opts for the `--' form are otherwise the same options as the
	      first form.  Note that `-s' following `--' has a distinct	 mean‐
	      ing from `-s' preceding `--', and both may appear.

	      With the option -n, _arguments sets the parameter NORMARG to the
	      position of the first normal argument in the $words array,  i.e.
	      the position after the end of the options.  If that argument has
	      not been reached, NORMARG is  set	 to  -1.   The	caller	should
	      declare  `integer NORMARG' if the -n option is passed; otherwise
	      the parameter is not used.

	      The option `-M matchspec' sets a match specification to  use  to
	      completion option names and values.  The default matchspec is:

		     r:|[_-]=* r:|=*

	      This allows partial word completion after `_' and `-', for exam‐
	      ple `-f-b' can be completed to `-foo-bar'.

	      Each of the following forms is a spec describing individual sets
	      of options or arguments on the command line being analyzed.

	      n:message:action
	      n::message:action
		     This  describes  the  n'th	 normal argument.  The message
		     will be printed  above  the  matches  generated  and  the
		     action  indicates	what can be completed in this position
		     (see below).  If there are two colons before the  message
		     the  argument  is optional.  If the message contains only
		     white space, nothing will be printed  above  the  matches
		     unless the action adds an explanation string itself.

	      :message:action
	      ::message:action
		     Similar, but describes the next argument, whatever number
		     that happens to be.  If all arguments  are	 specified  in
		     this  form	 in the correct order the numbers are unneces‐
		     sary.

	      *:message:action
	      *::message:action
	      *:::message:action
		     This describes how arguments  (usually  non-option	 argu‐
		     ments,  those  not	 beginning with - or +) are to be com‐
		     pleted when neither of the first two forms was  provided.
		     Any number of arguments can be completed in this fashion.

		     With  two	colons	before	the message, the words special
		     array and the CURRENT special parameter are  modified  to
		     refer  only  to  the  normal arguments when the action is
		     executed or evaluated.  With three colons before the mes‐
		     sage  they are modified to refer only to the normal argu‐
		     ments covered by this description.

	      optspec
	      optspec:...
		     This describes an option.	The colon  indicates  handling
		     for  one  or  more	 arguments to the option; if it is not
		     present, the option is assumed to take no arguments.

		     By default, options are multi-character name, one `-word'
		     per  option.   With -s, options may be single characters,
		     with more than one option per word, although words start‐
		     ing  with two hyphens, such as `--prefix', are still con‐
		     sidered complete option  names.   This  is	 suitable  for
		     standard GNU options.

		     The  combination  of  -s  with  -w	 allows	 single-letter
		     options to be combined in a single word even  if  one  or
		     more  of  the options take arguments.  For example, if -x
		     takes an argument, with no -s `-xy' is  considered	 as  a
		     single  (unhandled) option; with -s -xy is an option with
		     the argument `y'; with both -s and -w,  -xy  may  be  the
		     option -x and the option -y with arguments still to come.

		     The option -W takes this a stage further:	it is possible
		     to complete single-letter options even after an  argument
		     that occurs in the same word.  However, it depends on the
		     action performed whether options will really be completed
		     at	 this point.  For more control, use a utility function
		     like _guard as part of the action.

		     The following forms are available for  the	 initial  opt‐
		     spec, whether or not the option has arguments.

		     *optspec
			    Here  optspec is one of the remaining forms below.
			    This  indicates  the  following  optspec  may   be
			    repeated.	Otherwise  if the corresponding option
			    is already present on the command line to the left
			    of the cursor it will not be offered again.

		     -optname
		     +optname
			    In	the  simplest  form  the  optspec  is just the
			    option name beginning with a minus or a plus sign,
			    such as `-foo'.  The first argument for the option
			    (if any) must follow as a separate	word  directly
			    after the option.

			    Either  of `-+optname' and `+-optname' can be used
			    to specify that -optname  and  +optname  are  both
			    valid.

			    In all the remaining forms, the leading `-' may be
			    replaced by or paired with `+' in this way.

		     -optname-
			    The	 first	argument  of  the  option  must	  come
			    directly  after  the option name in the same word.
			    For example, `-foo-:...' specifies that  the  com‐
			    pleted   option   and   argument  will  look  like
			    `-fooarg'.

		     -optname+
			    The first argument may  appear  immediately	 after
			    optname in the same word, or may appear as a sepa‐
			    rate  word	after  the   option.	For   example,
			    `-foo+:...'	 specifies  that  the completed option
			    and argument will look like	 either	 `-fooarg'  or
			    `-foo arg'.

		     -optname=
			    The	 argument  may	appear as the next word, or in
			    same word as the option name provided that	it  is
			    separated  from  it by an equals sign, for example
			    `-foo=arg' or `-foo arg'.

		     -optname=-
			    The argument to the option must  appear  after  an
			    equals sign in the same word, and may not be given
			    in the next argument.

		     optspec[explanation]
			    An explanation string may be appended  to  any  of
			    the	 preceding forms of optspec by enclosing it in
			    brackets, as in `-q[query operation]'.

			    The verbose style is used to  decide  whether  the
			    explanation	 strings are displayed with the option
			    in a completion listing.

			    If no bracketed explanation string	is  given  but
			    the	 auto-description  style  is  set and only one
			    argument is described for this optspec, the	 value
			    of	the style is displayed, with any appearance of
			    the sequence `%d' in it replaced by the message of
			    the	 first	optarg	that  follows the optspec; see
			    below.

	      It is possible for options with a literal `+' or `=' to  appear,
	      but that character must be quoted, for example `-\+'.

	      The  options  -S and -A are available to simplify the specifica‐
	      tions for commands with standard option parsing.	 With  -S,  no
	      option  will  be	completed after a `--' appearing on its own on
	      the line; this argument will otherwise be ignored; hence in  the
	      line

		     foobar -x -- -y

	      the  `-x'	 is considered an option but the `-y' is considered an
	      argument, while the `--' is considered to be neither.

	      With -A, no options will be completed after the first non-option
	      argument	on  the	 line.	 The  -A must be followed by a pattern
	      matching all strings which are not to  be	 taken	as  arguments.
	      For  example,  to	 make _arguments stop completing options after
	      the first normal argument, but  ignoring	all  strings  starting
	      with  a hyphen even if they are not described by one of the opt‐
	      specs, the form is `-A "-*"'.

	      Each optarg following an optspec must take one of the  following
	      forms:

	      :message:action
	      ::message:action
		     An argument to the option; message and action are treated
		     as for ordinary arguments.	 In the first form, the	 argu‐
		     ment is mandatory, and in the second form it is optional.

		     This  group may be repeated for options which take multi‐
		     ple arguments.  In	 other	words,	:message1:action1:mes‐
		     sage2:action2  specifies  that the option takes two argu‐
		     ments.

	      :*pattern:message:action
	      :*pattern::message:action
	      :*pattern:::message:action
		     This describes multiple arguments.	 Only the last	optarg
		     for  an  option taking multiple arguments may be given in
		     this form.	 If the pattern is empty (i.e., :*:), all  the
		     remaining	words  on  the	line  are  to  be completed as
		     described by the action; otherwise, all the words	up  to
		     and  including a word matching the pattern are to be com‐
		     pleted using the action.

		     Multiple colons are treated as for the `*:...' forms  for
		     ordinary  arguments:  when the message is preceded by two
		     colons, the words special array and the  CURRENT  special
		     parameter are modified during the execution or evaluation
		     of the action to  refer  only  to	the  words  after  the
		     option.  When preceded by three colons, they are modified
		     to refer only to the words covered by this description.

       Any literal colon in an optname, message, or action must be preceded by
       a backslash, `\:'.

       Each  of	 the  forms  above may be preceded by a list in parentheses of
       option names and argument numbers.  If the given option is on the  com‐
       mand  line, the options and arguments indicated in parentheses will not
       be offered.  For	 example,  `(-two  -three  1)-one:...'	completes  the
       option  `-one';	if  this appears on the command line, the options -two
       and -three and the first ordinary argument will not be completed	 after
       it.   `(-foo):...' specifies an ordinary argument completion; -foo will
       not be completed if that argument is already present.

       Other items may appear in the list of excluded options to indicate var‐
       ious other items that should not be applied when the current specifica‐
       tion is matched: a single star (*) for the rest arguments (i.e. a spec‐
       ification   of	the   form  `*:...');  a  colon	 (:)  for  all	normal
       (non-option-) arguments; and a hyphen (-) for all options.   For	 exam‐
       ple,  if	 `(*)'	appears before an option and the option appears on the
       command line, the list of remaining arguments (those shown in the above
       table beginning with `*:') will not be completed.

       To aid in reuse of specifications, it is possible to precede any of the
       forms above with `!'; then  the	form  will  no	longer	be  completed,
       although	 if  the  option  or argument appears on the command line they
       will be skipped as normal.  The main use for this is when the arguments
       are  given  by  an  array, and _arguments is called repeatedly for more
       specific contexts: on the first call  `_arguments  $global_options'  is
       used, and on subsequent calls `_arguments !$^global_options'.

       In each of the forms above the action determines how completions should
       be generated.  Except for the `->string' form below, the action will be
       executed by calling the _all_labels function to process all tag labels.
       No special handling of tags is needed unless a function call introduces
       a new one.

       The option `-O name' specifies the name of an array whose elements will
       be passed as arguments to functions called  to  execute	actions.   For
       example,	 this can be used to pass the same set of options for the com‐
       padd builtin to all actions.

       The forms for action are as follows.

	 (single unquoted space)
	      This is useful where an argument is required but it is not  pos‐
	      sible or desirable to generate matches for it.  The message will
	      be displayed but no completions listed.  Note that even in  this
	      case  the colon at the end of the message is needed; it may only
	      be omitted when neither a message nor an action is given.

       (item1 item2 ...)
	      One of a list of possible matches, for example:

		     :foo:(foo bar baz)

       ((item1\:desc1 ...))
	      Similar to the above, but with descriptions  for	each  possible
	      match.  Note the backslash before the colon.  For example,

		     :foo:((a\:bar b\:baz))

	      The  matches  will be listed together with their descriptions if
	      the description style is set with the values tag in the context.

       ->string
	      In this form, _arguments processes the arguments and options and
	      then returns control to the calling function with parameters set
	      to indicate the state of processing; the calling	function  then
	      makes  its  own  arrangements  for  generating completions.  For
	      example, functions that implement a state machine can  use  this
	      type of action.

	      Where  _arguments encounters action in the `->string' format, it
	      will strip all leading and trailing whitespace from  string  and
	      set  the	array  state  to  the  set of all strings for which an
	      action  is  to  be  performed.   The  elements  of   the	 array
	      state_descr  are	assigned  the corresponding message field from
	      each optarg containing such an action.

	      By default and in common with all other well behaved  completion
	      functions,  _arguments returns status zero if it was able to add
	      matches and non-zero otherwise. However, if  the	-R  option  is
	      given,  _arguments  will instead return a status of 300 to indi‐
	      cate that $state is to be handled.

	      In addition to $state and $state_descr, _arguments also sets the
	      global  parameters `context', `line' and `opt_args' as described
	      below, and does not reset any changes made to the special param‐
	      eters such as PREFIX and words.  This gives the calling function
	      the choice of resetting these parameters or propagating  changes
	      in them.

	      A	 function calling _arguments with at least one action contain‐
	      ing a `->string' must therefore declare appropriate local param‐
	      eters:

		     local context state state_descr line
		     typeset -A opt_args

	      to prevent _arguments from altering the global environment.

       {eval-string}
	      A	 string	 in  braces  is	 evaluated  as	shell code to generate
	      matches.	If the eval-string itself does not begin with an open‐
	      ing  parenthesis or brace it is split into separate words before
	      execution.

       = action
	      If the action starts with `= ' (an equals	 sign  followed	 by  a
	      space),  _arguments  will	 insert	 the  contents of the argument
	      field of the current context as the new  first  element  in  the
	      words  special array and increment the value of the CURRENT spe‐
	      cial parameter.  This has the effect of inserting a  dummy  word
	      onto the completion command line while not changing the point at
	      which completion is taking place.

	      This is most useful with one of the specifiers that restrict the
	      words on the command line on which the action is to operate (the
	      two- and three-colon forms above).  One particular use  is  when
	      an  action itself causes _arguments on a restricted range; it is
	      necessary to use this trick to  insert  an  appropriate  command
	      name into the range for the second call to _arguments to be able
	      to parse the line.

	word...
       word...
	      This covers all forms other than those  above.   If  the	action
	      starts with a space, the remaining list of words will be invoked
	      unchanged.

	      Otherwise it will be invoked  with  some	extra  strings	placed
	      after  the first word; these are to be passed down as options to
	      the compadd builtin.  They ensure that the  state	 specified  by
	      _arguments,  in particular the descriptions of options and argu‐
	      ments, is correctly passed to  the  completion  command.	 These
	      additional  arguments are taken from the array parameter `expl';
	      this will be set up before executing the action and hence may be
	      referred	to  inside  it,	 typically in an expansion of the form
	      `$expl[@]' which preserves empty elements of the array.

       During the performance of the action the array `line' will  be  set  to
       the  normal  arguments  from  the command line, i.e. the words from the
       command line after the command name excluding  all  options  and	 their
       arguments.  Options are stored in the associative array `opt_args' with
       option names as keys and their arguments as the	values.	  For  options
       that  have  more than one argument these are given as one string, sepa‐
       rated by colons.	 All colons in the  original  arguments	 are  preceded
       with backslashes.

       The  parameter  `context' is set when returning to the calling function
       to perform an action of the form `->string'.  It is set to an array  of
       elements	 corresponding	to  the elements of $state.  Each element is a
       suitable name for the argument field of the context: either a string of
       the  form `option-opt-n' for the n'th argument of the option -opt, or a
       string of the form `argument-n' for  the	 n'th  argument.   For	`rest'
       arguments,  that	 is  those in the list at the end not handled by posi‐
       tion, n is the string `rest'.  For example, when completing  the	 argu‐
       ment  of	 the -o option, the name is `option-o-1', while for the second
       normal (non-option-) argument it is `argument-2'.

       Furthermore, during the evaluation of the action the  context  name  in
       the  curcontext	parameter is altered to append the same string that is
       stored in the context parameter.

       The option -C tells _arguments to modify the curcontext	parameter  for
       an  action  of the form `->state'.  This is the standard parameter used
       to keep track of the current context.  Here it  (and  not  the  context
       array)  should  be  made local to the calling function to avoid passing
       back the modified value and should be initialised to the current	 value
       at the start of the function:

	      local curcontext="$curcontext"

       This is useful where it is not possible for multiple states to be valid
       together.

       It is possible to specify multiple sets of options and  arguments  with
       the  sets  separated  by single hyphens.	 The specifications before the
       first hyphen (if any) are shared by all the remaining sets.  The	 first
       word in every other set provides a name for the set which may appear in
       exclusion lists in specifications, either alone or before  one  of  the
       possible	 values	 described  above.   In	 the  second case a `-' should
       appear between this name and the remainder.

       For example:

	      _arguments \
		  -a \
		- set1 \
		  -c \
		- set2 \
		  -d \
		  ':arg:(x2 y2)'

       This defines two sets.  When the command line contains the option `-c',
       the  `-d'  option and the argument will not be considered possible com‐
       pletions.  When it contains `-d' or an argument, the option  `-c'  will
       not be considered.  However, after `-a' both sets will still be consid‐
       ered valid.

       If the name given for one of the mutually exclusive sets is of the form
       `(name)' then only one value from each set will ever be completed; more
       formally, all specifications are mutually exclusive to all other speci‐
       fications  in  the same set.  This is useful for defining multiple sets
       of options which are mutually exclusive and in which  the  options  are
       aliases for each other.	For example:

	      _arguments \
		  -a -b \
		- '(compress)' \
		  {-c,--compress}'[compress]' \
		- '(uncompress)' \
		  {-d,--decompress}'[decompress]'

       As  the	completion  code  has to parse the command line separately for
       each set this form of argument is slow and should  only	be  used  when
       necessary.   A useful alternative is often an option specification with
       rest-arguments (as in `-foo:*:...'); here the option -foo  swallows  up
       all remaining arguments as described by the optarg definitions.

       The option `--' allows _arguments to work out the names of long options
       that support the `--help' option which is standard  in  many  GNU  com‐
       mands.	The  command word is called with the argument `--help' and the
       output examined for option names.  Clearly, it can be dangerous to pass
       this  to commands which may not support this option as the behaviour of
       the command is unspecified.

       In addition to options, `_arguments --' will try to deduce the types of
       arguments available for options when the form `--opt=val' is valid.  It
       is also possible to provide hints by examining the  help	 text  of  the
       command	and adding helpspec of the form `pattern:message:action'; note
       that other _arguments spec forms are not used.  The pattern is  matched
       against	the help text for an option, and if it matches the message and
       action are used as for other argument specifiers.  The special case  of
       `*:'  means  both message and action are empty, which has the effect of
       causing options having no description in the help output to be  ordered
       in listings ahead of options that have a description.

       For example:

	      _arguments -- '*\*:toggle:(yes no)' \
			    '*=FILE*:file:_files' \
			    '*=DIR*:directory:_files -/' \
			    '*=PATH*:directory:_files -/'

       Here, `yes' and `no' will be completed as the argument of options whose
       description ends in a star; file names will be  completed  for  options
       that  contain the substring `=FILE' in the description; and directories
       will be completed for options  whose  description  contains  `=DIR'  or
       `=PATH'.	  The  last  three  are in fact the default and so need not be
       given explicitly, although it is possible to override the use of	 these
       patterns.  A typical help text which uses this feature is:

		-C, --directory=DIR	     change to directory DIR

       so that the above specifications will cause directories to be completed
       after `--directory', though not after `-C'.

       Note also that _arguments tries to find out automatically if the	 argu‐
       ment  for  an  option is optional.  This can be specified explicitly by
       doubling the colon before the message.

       If the pattern ends in `(-)', this will be removed from the pattern and
       the  action  will  be used only directly after the `=', not in the next
       word.  This is the behaviour of a normal specification defined with the
       form `=-'.

       The `_arguments --' can be followed by the option `-i patterns' to give
       patterns for options which are not to be completed.  The	 patterns  can
       be  given  as  the  name	 of an array parameter or as a literal list in
       parentheses.  For example,

	      _arguments -- -i \
		  "(--(en|dis)able-FEATURE*)"

       will cause completion to	 ignore	 the  options  `--enable-FEATURE'  and
       `--disable-FEATURE' (this example is useful with GNU configure).

       The  `_arguments	 --' form can also be followed by the option `-s pair'
       to describe option aliases.  The pair consists of a list of alternating
       patterns	 and corresponding replacements, enclosed in parens and quoted
       so that it forms a single argument word in the _arguments call.

       For example, some configure-script help output describes	 options  only
       as `--enable-foo', but the script also accepts the negated form `--dis‐
       able-foo'.  To allow completion of the second form:

	      _arguments -- -s "(#--enable- --disable-)"

       Finally, note that _arguments generally expects to be the primary func‐
       tion  handling  any  completion for which it is used.  It may have side
       effects which change the treatment of any matches added by other	 func‐
       tions  called  after  it.   To combine _arguments with other functions,
       those functions should be called either before _arguments, as an action
       within a spec, or in handlers for `->state' actions.

       Here is a more general example of the use of _arguments:

	      _arguments '-l+:left border:' \
			 '-format:paper size:(letter A4)' \
			 '*-copy:output file:_files::resolution:(300 600)' \
			 ':postscript file:_files -g \*.\(ps\|eps\)' \
			 '*:page number:'

       This  describes three options: `-l', `-format', and `-copy'.  The first
       takes one argument described as `left border' for which	no  completion
       will  be	 offered  because  of the empty action.	 Its argument may come
       directly after the `-l' or it may be given as  the  next	 word  on  the
       line.

       The  `-format' option takes one argument in the next word, described as
       `paper size' for which only the strings `letter' and `A4' will be  com‐
       pleted.

       The  `-copy'  option  may appear more than once on the command line and
       takes two arguments.  The first is mandatory and will be completed as a
       filename.   The	second is optional (because of the second colon before
       the description `resolution') and will be completed  from  the  strings
       `300' and `600'.

       The  last  two  descriptions say what should be completed as arguments.
       The first describes the first argument as a `postscript file' and makes
       files ending in `ps' or `eps' be completed.  The last description gives
       all other arguments the description `page numbers' but does  not	 offer
       completions.

       _cache_invalid cache_identifier
	      This  function returns status zero if the completions cache cor‐
	      responding to the given cache identifier needs  rebuilding.   It
	      determines  this	by  looking  up the cache-policy style for the
	      current context.	This should provide a function name  which  is
	      run  with	 the  full path to the relevant cache file as the only
	      argument.

	      Example:

		     _example_caching_policy () {
			 # rebuild if cache is more than a week old
			 local -a oldp
			 oldp=( "$1"(Nm+7) )
			 (( $#oldp ))
		     }

       _call_function return name [ args ... ]
	      If a function name exists, it is called with the arguments args.
	      The  return  argument gives the name of a parameter in which the
	      return status from the function name should be stored; if return
	      is empty or a single hyphen it is ignored.

	      The  return status of _call_function itself is zero if the func‐
	      tion name exists and was called and non-zero otherwise.

       _call_program tag string ...
	      This function provides a mechanism for the user to override  the
	      use  of an external command.  It looks up the command style with
	      the supplied tag.	 If the style is set, its value is used as the
	      command to execute.  The strings from the call to _call_program,
	      or from the style if set, are concatenated with  spaces  between
	      them  and	 the resulting string is evaluated.  The return status
	      is the return status of the command called.

       _combination [ -s pattern ] tag style spec ... field opts ...
	      This function is used to complete combinations of	 values,   for
	      example  pairs  of  hostnames and usernames.  The style argument
	      gives the style which defines the pairs; it is looked  up	 in  a
	      context with the tag specified.

	      The style name consists of field names separated by hyphens, for
	      example `users-hosts-ports'.  For each  field  for  a  value  is
	      already known, a spec of the form `field=pattern' is given.  For
	      example, if the command line so far specifies a user `pws',  the
	      argument `users=pws' should appear.

	      The  next	 argument  with no equals sign is taken as the name of
	      the field for which completions should be generated  (presumably
	      not one of the fields for which the value is known).

	      The matches generated will be taken from the value of the style.
	      These should contain the possible values for the combinations in
	      the  appropriate	order  (users,	hosts,	ports  in  the example
	      above).  The different  fields  the  values  for	the  different
	      fields  are  separated  by colons.  This can be altered with the
	      option -s to _combination which specifies a pattern.   Typically
	      this  is	a  character  class, as for example `-s "[:@]"' in the
	      case of the users-hosts style.	Each `field=pattern'  specifi‐
	      cation  restricts the completions which apply to elements of the
	      style with appropriately matching fields.

	      If no style with the given name is defined for the given tag, or
	      if  none	of  the strings in style's value match, but a function
	      name of the required field preceded by an underscore is defined,
	      that function will be called to generate the matches.  For exam‐
	      ple, if there is no `users-hosts-ports' or no matching  hostname
	      when  a  host  is required, the function `_hosts' will automati‐
	      cally be called.

	      If the same name is used for more than one field,	 in  both  the
	      `field=pattern'  and  the	 argument  that	 gives the name of the
	      field to be completed, the number of the	field  (starting  with
	      one)  may	 be  given after the fieldname, separated from it by a
	      colon.

	      All arguments after the required field name are passed  to  com‐
	      padd  when  generating  matches  from the style value, or to the
	      functions for the fields if they are called.

       _describe [ -oO | -t tag ] descr name1 [ name2 ] opts ... -- ...
	      This function associates completions with descriptions.	Multi‐
	      ple  groups  separated  by  -- can be supplied, potentially with
	      different completion options opts.

	      The descr is taken as a string to display above the  matches  if
	      the  format style for the descriptions tag is set.  This is fol‐
	      lowed by one or two names of arrays followed by options to  pass
	      to  compadd.   The first array contains the possible completions
	      with their descriptions in  the  form  `completion:description'.
	      Any  literal  colons  in	completion must be quoted with a back‐
	      slash.  If a second array is given, it should have the same num‐
	      ber  of  elements	 as  the first; in this case the corresponding
	      elements are added as possible completions instead of  the  com‐
	      pletion  strings from the first array.  The completion list will
	      retain the descriptions from the first array.  Finally, a set of
	      completion options can appear.

	      If  the  option  `-o'  appears  before  the  first argument, the
	      matches added will be treated as names of command options	 (N.B.
	      not  shell  options),  typically following a `-', `--' or `+' on
	      the command line.	 In this case _describe uses  the  prefix-hid‐
	      den, prefix-needed and verbose styles to find out if the strings
	      should be added as completions and if the descriptions should be
	      shown.   Without the `-o' option, only the verbose style is used
	      to decide how descriptions are shown.  If `-O' is	 used  instead
	      of  `-o',	 command  options are completed as above but _describe
	      will not handle the prefix-needed style.

	      With the -t option a tag can be specified.  The default is `val‐
	      ues' or, if the -o option is given, `options'.

	      If  selected  by	the  list-grouped style, strings with the same
	      description will appear together in the list.

	      _describe uses the _all_labels function to generate the matches,
	      so it does not need to appear inside a loop over tag labels.

       _description [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ spec ... ]
	      This function is not to be confused with the previous one; it is
	      used as a helper function for creating options to	 compadd.   It
	      is  buried  inside many of the higher level completion functions
	      and so often does not need to be called directly.

	      The styles listed below are tested in the current context	 using
	      the  given  tag.	The resulting options for compadd are put into
	      the array named name (this is  traditionally  `expl',  but  this
	      convention  is  not  enforced).	The description for the corre‐
	      sponding set of matches is passed to the function in descr.

	      The styles tested are: format, hidden, matcher, ignored-patterns
	      and  group-name.	The format style is first tested for the given
	      tag and then for the descriptions tag if	no  value  was	found,
	      while  the  remainder  are  only tested for the tag given as the
	      first argument.  The function also calls _setup which tests some
	      more styles.

	      The  string  returned by the format style (if any) will be modi‐
	      fied so that the sequence `%d' is replaced by the descr given as
	      the  third argument without any leading or trailing white space.
	      If, after removing the white  space,  the	 descr	is  the	 empty
	      string,  the  format  style will not be used and the options put
	      into the name array will not contain an explanation string to be
	      displayed above the matches.

	      If  _description	is  called with more than three arguments, the
	      additional specs should be of the form `char:str'.  These supply
	      escape sequence replacements for the format style: every appear‐
	      ance of `%char' will be replaced by string.

	      If the -x option is given, the description  will	be  passed  to
	      compadd  using  the  -x  option instead of the default -X.  This
	      means that the description will be displayed even if  there  are
	      no corresponding matches.

	      The  options  placed  in	the  array  name  take	account of the
	      group-name style, so matches are	placed	in  a  separate	 group
	      where necessary.	The group normally has its elements sorted (by
	      passing the option -J to compadd), but  if  an  option  starting
	      with  `-V',  `-J', `-1', or `-2' is passed to _description, that
	      option will be included in the array.  Hence it is possible  for
	      the  completion  group to be unsorted by giving the option `-V',
	      `-1V', or `-2V'.

	      In most cases, the function will be used like this:

		     local expl
		     _description files expl file
		     compadd "$expl[@]" - "$files[@]"

	      Note the use of the parameter expl, the hyphen, and the list  of
	      matches.	Almost all calls to compadd within the completion sys‐
	      tem use a	 similar  format;  this	 ensures  that	user-specified
	      styles are correctly passed down to the builtins which implement
	      the internals of completion.

       _dispatch context string ...
	      This sets the current context to context and looks  for  comple‐
	      tion  functions  to  handle  this context by hunting through the
	      list of command names or special contexts	 (as  described	 above
	      for compdef) given as string ....	 The first completion function
	      to be defined for one of the contexts in the  list  is  used  to
	      generate	matches.   Typically,  the last string is -default- to
	      cause the function for default completion to be used as a	 fall‐
	      back.

	      The  function  sets  the	parameter $service to the string being
	      tried, and sets the context/command field (the  fourth)  of  the
	      $curcontext  parameter  to  the context given as the first argu‐
	      ment.

       _files The function _files calls _path_files with all the arguments  it
	      was  passed  except for -g and -/.  The use of these two options
	      depends on the setting of the  file-patterns style.

	      This function  accepts  the  full	 set  of  options  allowed  by
	      _path_files, described below.

       _gnu_generic
	      This function is a simple wrapper around the _arguments function
	      described above.	It can be used to determine automatically  the
	      long  options  understood	 by  commands that produce a list when
	      passed the option `--help'.  It is intended  to  be  used	 as  a
	      top-level completion function in its own right.  For example, to
	      enable option completion for the commands foo and bar, use

		     compdef _gnu_generic foo bar

	      after the call to compinit.

	      The completion system as supplied is conservative in its use  of
	      this  function,  since  it  is  important to be sure the command
	      understands the option `--help'.

       _guard [ options ] pattern descr
	      This function is intended to be used in the action for the spec‐
	      ifications  passed  to  _arguments  and  similar	functions.  It
	      returns immediately with a non-zero return status if the	string
	      to  be  completed	 does  not  match the pattern.	If the pattern
	      matches, the descr is displayed; the function then returns  sta‐
	      tus  zero	 if the word to complete is not empty, non-zero other‐
	      wise.

	      The pattern may be preceded by any of the options understood  by
	      compadd  that  are passed down from _description, namely -M, -J,
	      -V, -1, -2, -n, -F  and  -X.   All  of  these  options  will  be
	      ignored.	 This  fits  in conveniently with the argument-passing
	      conventions of actions for _arguments.

	      As an example, consider a command	 taking	 the  options  -n  and
	      -none,  where -n must be followed by a numeric value in the same
	      word.  By using:

		     _arguments '-n-: :_guard "[0-9]#" "numeric value"' '-none'

	      _arguments can be made to	 both  display	the  message  `numeric
	      value'  and  complete  options  after `-n<TAB>'.	If the `-n' is
	      already followed by one or more digits (the  pattern  passed  to
	      _guard)  only the message will be displayed; if the `-n' is fol‐
	      lowed by another character, only options are completed.

       _message [ -r12 ] [ -VJ group ] descr
       _message -e [ tag ] descr
	      The descr is used in the same way as the third argument  to  the
	      _description  function,  except  that  the resulting string will
	      always be shown whether or not matches were generated.  This  is
	      useful  for displaying a help message in places where no comple‐
	      tions can be generated.

	      The format style is examined with the messages  tag  to  find  a
	      message;	the usual tag, descriptions, is used only if the style
	      is not set with the former.

	      If the -r option is given, no style is used; the descr is	 taken
	      literally	 as  the  string to display.  This is most useful when
	      the descr comes from a pre-processed argument list which already
	      contains an expanded description.

	      The  -12VJ options and the group are passed to compadd and hence
	      determine the group the message string is added to.

	      The second -e form gives a description for completions with  the
	      tag  tag	to be shown even if there are no matches for that tag.
	      This form is called by _arguments in the event that there is  no
	      action  for an option specification.  The tag can be omitted and
	      if so the tag is taken from the parameter $curtag; this is main‐
	      tained by the completion system and so is usually correct.  Note
	      that if there are no  matches  at	 the  time  this  function  is
	      called, compstate[insert] is cleared, so additional matches gen‐
	      erated later are not inserted on the command line.

       _multi_parts sep array
	      The argument sep is a separator character.   The	array  may  be
	      either  the name of an array parameter or a literal array in the
	      form `(foo bar)', a parenthesised list  of  words	 separated  by
	      whitespace.   The	 possible completions are the strings from the
	      array.  However, each chunk delimited by sep will	 be  completed
	      separately.  For example, the _tar function uses `_multi_parts /
	      patharray' to complete partial file paths from the  given	 array
	      of complete file paths.

	      The  -i option causes _multi_parts to insert a unique match even
	      if that requires multiple separators to be  inserted.   This  is
	      not  usually  the expected behaviour with filenames, but certain
	      other types of completion, for example those with a fixed set of
	      possibilities, may be more suited to this form.

	      Like  other  utility  functions, this function accepts the `-V',
	      `-J', `-1', `-2', `-n', `-f',  `-X',  `-M',  `-P',  `-S',	 `-r',
	      `-R', and `-q' options and passes them to the compadd builtin.

       _next_label [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag name descr [ options ... ]
	      This  function  is used to implement the loop over different tag
	      labels for a particular tag as described above for the tag-order
	      style.   On each call it checks to see if there are any more tag
	      labels; if there is it returns status zero, otherwise  non-zero.
	      As  this	function  requires  a  current	tag to be set, it must
	      always follow a call to _tags or _requested.

	      The -x12VJ options and the first three arguments are  passed  to
	      the  _description	 function.   Where appropriate the tag will be
	      replaced by a tag label in this call.  Any description given  in
	      the  tag-order  style  is	 preferred  to	the  descr  passed  to
	      _next_label.

	      The options given after the descr are set in the parameter given
	      by name, and hence are to be passed to compadd or whatever func‐
	      tion is called to add the matches.

	      Here is a typical use of this function for  the  tag  foo.   The
	      call to _requested determines if tag foo is required at all; the
	      loop over _next_label handles any labels defined for the tag  in
	      the tag-order style.

		     local expl ret=1
		     ...
		     if _requested foo; then
		       ...
		       while _next_label foo expl '...'; do
			 compadd "$expl[@]" ... && ret=0
		       done
		       ...
		     fi
		     return ret

       _normal
	      This  is	the standard function called to handle completion out‐
	      side any special -context-.  It is called both to	 complete  the
	      command  word and also the arguments for a command.  In the sec‐
	      ond case, _normal looks for a special completion for  that  com‐
	      mand,  and  if  there  is	 none  it  uses the completion for the
	      -default- context.

	      A second use is to reexamine the command line specified  by  the
	      $words  array  and  the $CURRENT parameter after those have been
	      modified.	 For example, the  function  _precommand,  which  com‐
	      pletes  after  pre-command specifiers such as nohup, removes the
	      first word from the words array, decrements the CURRENT  parame‐
	      ter,  then  calls	 _normal again.	 The effect is that `nohup cmd
	      ...' is treated in the same way as `cmd ...'.

	      If the command name matches one of the patterns given by one  of
	      the  options  -p	or -P to compdef, the corresponding completion
	      function is called and then the parameter _compskip is  checked.
	      If  it  is set completion is terminated at that point even if no
	      matches have been found.	This is the  same  effect  as  in  the
	      -first- context.

       _options
	      This  can	 be  used  to complete the names of shell options.  It
	      provides a matcher specification that ignores  a	leading	 `no',
	      ignores underscores and allows upper-case letters to match their
	      lower-case  counterparts	 (for	example,   `glob',   `noglob',
	      `NO_GLOB'	 are  all completed).  Any arguments are propagated to
	      the compadd builtin.

       _options_set and _options_unset
	      These functions complete only set or  unset  options,  with  the
	      same matching specification used in the _options function.

	      Note  that  you  need to uncomment a few lines in the _main_com‐
	      plete function for these functions to work properly.  The	 lines
	      in  question  are	 used  to  store the option settings in effect
	      before the completion widget locally sets the options it	needs.
	      Hence  these  functions are not generally used by the completion
	      system.

       _parameters
	      This is used to complete the names of shell parameters.

	      The option `-g pattern'  limits  the  completion	to  parameters
	      whose type matches the pattern.  The type of a parameter is that
	      shown by `print ${(t)param}', hence judicious use of `*' in pat‐
	      tern is probably necessary.

	      All other arguments are passed to the compadd builtin.

       _path_files
	      This  function  is used throughout the completion system to com‐
	      plete filenames.	It allows completion of	 partial  paths.   For
	      example,	 the   string	`/u/i/s/sig'   may   be	 completed  to
	      `/usr/include/sys/signal.h'.

	      The options accepted by both _path_files and _files are:

	      -f     Complete all filenames.  This is the default.

	      -/     Specifies that only directories should be completed.

	      -g pattern
		     Specifies that only files matching the pattern should  be
		     completed.

	      -W paths
		     Specifies	path  prefixes that are to be prepended to the
		     string from the command line to  generate	the  filenames
		     but  that should not be inserted as completions nor shown
		     in completion listings.  Here, paths may be the  name  of
		     an	 array	parameter, a literal list of paths enclosed in
		     parentheses or an absolute pathname.

	      -F ignored-files
		     This behaves as for the corresponding option to the  com‐
		     padd  builtin.   It gives direct control over which file‐
		     names should be ignored.  If the option is	 not  present,
		     the ignored-patterns style is used.

	      Both  _path_files	 and  _files also accept the following options
	      which are passed to compadd: `-J', `-V', `-1', `-2', `-n', `-X',
	      `-M', `-P', `-S', `-q', `-r', and `-R'.

	      Finally,	the  _path_files  function   uses  the	styles expand,
	      ambiguous, special-dirs, list-suffixes and  file-sort  described
	      above.

       _pick_variant [ -b builtin-label ] [ -c command ] [ -r name ]
	  label=pattern ... label [ args ... ]
	      This  function is used to resolve situations where a single com‐
	      mand name requires  more	than  one  type	 of  handling,	either
	      because  it has more than one variant or because there is a name
	      clash between two different commands.

	      The command to run is taken from the first element of the	 array
	      words  unless this is overridden by the option -c.  This command
	      is run and its output is compared with  a	 series	 of  patterns.
	      Arguments	 to  be	 passed to the command can be specified at the
	      end after all the other arguments.  The patterns to try in order
	      are given by the arguments label=pattern; if the output of `com‐
	      mand args ...' contains pattern, then label is selected  as  the
	      label  for  the command variant.	If none of the patterns match,
	      the final command label is selected and status 1 is returned.

	      If the `-b builtin-label' is given, the command is tested to see
	      if  it  is  provided as a shell builtin, possibly autoloaded; if
	      so, the label builtin-label is selected as  the  label  for  the
	      variant.

	      If  the  `-r  name'  is given, the label picked is stored in the
	      parameter named name.

	      The results are also  cached  in	the  _cmd_variant  associative
	      array indexed by the name of the command run.

       _regex_arguments name spec ...
	      This function generates a completion function name which matches
	      the specifications spec ..., a set  of  regular  expressions  as
	      described	 below.	  After running _regex_arguments, the function
	      name should be called as a normal completion function.  The pat‐
	      tern  to	be matched is given by the contents of the words array
	      up to the current cursor	position  joined  together  with  null
	      characters; no quotation is applied.

	      The  arguments  are grouped as sets of alternatives separated by
	      `|', which are tried one after  the  other  until	 one  matches.
	      Each  alternative consists of a one or more specifications which
	      are tried	 left  to  right,  with	 each  pattern	matched	 being
	      stripped	in  turn from the command line being tested, until all
	      of the group succeeds or until one fails; in  the	 latter	 case,
	      the  next	 alternative is tried.	This structure can be repeated
	      to arbitrary depth by using parentheses; matching proceeds  from
	      inside to outside.

	      A	 special  procedure  is	 applied  if  no test succeeds but the
	      remaining command line string contains no null character (imply‐
	      ing  the	remaining word is the one for which completions are to
	      be generated).  The  completion  target  is  restricted  to  the
	      remaining	 word  and  any actions for the corresponding patterns
	      are executed.  In this case, nothing is stripped from  the  com‐
	      mand line string.	 The order of evaluation of the actions can be
	      determined by the tag-order style; the various formats supported
	      by  _alternative	can  be used in action.	 The descr is used for
	      setting up the array parameter expl.

	      Specification arguments take one of following  forms,  in	 which
	      metacharacters such as `(', `)', `#' and `|' should be quoted.

	      /pattern/ [%lookahead%] [-guard] [:tag:descr:action]
		     This is a single primitive component.  The function tests
		     whether  the  combined  pattern  `(#b)((#B)pattern)looka‐
		     head*'  matches  the command line string.	If so, `guard'
		     is evaluated and its return status is examined to	deter‐
		     mine  if the test has succeeded.  The pattern string `[]'
		     is guaranteed never  to  match.   The  lookahead  is  not
		     stripped from the command line before the next pattern is
		     examined.

		     The argument starting with : is used in the  same	manner
		     as an argument to _alternative.

		     A	component is used as follows: pattern is tested to see
		     if the component already exists on the command line.   If
		     it	 does,	any  following	specifications are examined to
		     find something to complete.  If a	component  is  reached
		     but  no  such pattern exists yet on the command line, the
		     string containing the action is used to generate  matches
		     to insert at that point.

	      /pattern/+ [%lookahead%] [-guard] [:tag:descr:action]
		     This  is  similar to `/pattern/ ...' but the left part of
		     the command line string (i.e. the part already matched by
		     previous patterns) is also considered part of the comple‐
		     tion target.

	      /pattern/- [%lookahead%] [-guard] [:tag:descr:action]
		     This is similar to `/pattern/ ...' but the actions of the
		     current  and previously matched patterns are ignored even
		     if the following `pattern' matches the empty string.

	      ( spec )
		     Parentheses may be used to groups specs; note each paren‐
		     thesis is a single argument to _regex_arguments.

	      spec # This allows any number of repetitions of spec.

	      spec spec
		     The  two  specs  are to be matched one after the other as
		     described above.

	      spec | spec
		     Either of the two specs can be matched.

	      The function _regex_words can be used as a  helper  function  to
	      generate	matches	 for  a set of alternative words possibly with
	      their own arguments as a command line argument.

	      Examples:

		     _regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \
		     /$'[^\0]#\0'/ :'compadd aaa'

	      This generates a function _tst that completes aaa	 as  its  only
	      argument.	  The  tag  and	 description  for the action have been
	      omitted for brevity (this works but is not recommended in normal
	      use).   The  first  component matches the command word, which is
	      arbitrary; the second matches  any argument.  As the argument is
	      also  arbitrary, any following component would not depend on aaa
	      being present.

		     _regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \
		     /$'aaa\0'/ :'compadd aaa'

	      This is a more typical use; it is	 similar,  but	any  following
	      patterns	would only match if aaa was present as the first argu‐
	      ment.

		     _regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \( \
		     /$'aaa\0'/ :'compadd aaa' \
		     /$'bbb\0'/ :'compadd bbb' \) \#

	      In this example, an indefinite number of command	arguments  may
	      be completed.  Odd arguments are completed as aaa and even argu‐
	      ments as bbb.  Completion fails unless the set of	 aaa  and  bbb
	      arguments before the current one is matched correctly.

		     _regex_arguments _tst /$'[^\0]#\0'/ \
		     \( /$'aaa\0'/ :'compadd aaa' \| \
		     /$'bbb\0'/ :'compadd bbb' \) \#

	      This  is similar, but either aaa or bbb may be completed for any
	      argument.	 In this case _regex_words could be used to generate a
	      suitable expression for the arguments.

       _regex_words tag description spec ...
	      This  function  can  be  used  to	 generate  arguments  for  the
	      _regex_arguments command which may  be  inserted	at  any	 point
	      where  a set of rules is expected.  The tag and description give
	      a standard tag and description pertaining to  the	 current  con‐
	      text.   Each spec contains two or three arguments separated by a
	      colon: note that there is no leading colon in this case.

	      Each spec gives one of a set of words that may be	 completed  at
	      this point, together with arguments.  It is thus roughly equiva‐
	      lent to the _arguments function when used in normal  (non-regex)
	      completion.

	      The  part	 of  the spec before the first colon is the word to be
	      completed.  This may contain a *; the entire  word,  before  and
	      after  the  *  is	 completed,  but only the text before the * is
	      required for the context to be matched, so  that	further	 argu‐
	      ments may be completed after the abbreviated form.

	      The second part of spec is a description for the word being com‐
	      pleted.

	      The optional third part of the spec describes how words  follow‐
	      ing  the one being completed are themselves to be completed.  It
	      will be evaluated in order to avoid problems with quoting.  This
	      means  that  typically  it contains a reference to an array con‐
	      taining previously generated regex arguments.

	      The option -t term specifies a terminator for the	 word  instead
	      of the usual space.  This is handled as an auto-removable suffix
	      in the manner of the option -s sep to _values.

	      The result of the processing by _regex_words is  placed  in  the
	      array reply, which should be made local to the calling function.
	      If the set of words and arguments may be matched repeatedly, a #
	      should be appended to the generated array at that point.

	      For example:

		     local -a reply
		     _regex_words mydb-commands 'mydb commands' \
		       'add:add an entry to mydb:$mydb_add_cmds' \
		       'show:show entries in mydb'
		     _regex_arguments _mydb "$reply[@]"
		     _mydb "$@"

	      This  shows a completion function for a command mydb which takes
	      two command arguments, add and show.  show takes	no  arguments,
	      while  the  arguments  for  add have already been prepared in an
	      array mydb_add_cmds,  quite  possibly  by	 a  previous  call  to
	      _regex_words.

       _requested [ -x ] [ -12VJ ] tag [ name descr [ command args ... ] ]
	      This  function  is called to decide whether a tag already regis‐
	      tered by a call to _tags (see below) has been requested  by  the
	      user  and	 hence	completion  should  be	performed  for it.  It
	      returns status zero if the tag is requested and non-zero	other‐
	      wise.   The  function  is	 typically used as part of a loop over
	      different tags as follows:

		     _tags foo bar baz
		     while _tags; do
		       if _requested foo; then
			 ... # perform completion for foo
		       fi
		       ... # test the tags bar and baz in the same way
		       ... # exit loop if matches were generated
		     done

	      Note that the test for whether matches  were  generated  is  not
	      performed	 until the end of the _tags loop.  This is so that the
	      user can set the tag-order style to specify a set of tags to  be
	      completed at the same time.

	      If  name	and descr are given, _requested calls the _description
	      function with these arguments together with the  options	passed
	      to _requested.

	      If  command  is  given,  the _all_labels function will be called
	      immediately with the same arguments.  In simple cases this makes
	      it  possible to perform the test for the tag and the matching in
	      one go.  For example:

		     local expl ret=1
		     _tags foo bar baz
		     while _tags; do
		       _requested foo expl 'description' \
			   compadd foobar foobaz && ret=0
		       ...
		       (( ret )) || break
		     done

	      If the command is not compadd, it must nevertheless be  prepared
	      to handle the same options.

       _retrieve_cache cache_identifier
	      This  function  retrieves	 completion  information from the file
	      given by cache_identifier, stored in a  directory	 specified  by
	      the  cache-path  style  which  defaults  to  ~/.zcompcache.  The
	      return status is zero if retrieval was successful.  It will only
	      attempt retrieval if the use-cache style is set, so you can call
	      this function without worrying about whether the user wanted  to
	      use the caching layer.

	      See _store_cache below for more details.

       _sep_parts
	      This  function  is  passed  alternating arrays and separators as
	      arguments.  The arrays specify completions for parts of  strings
	      to  be separated by the separators.  The arrays may be the names
	      of array parameters or a quoted list of  words  in  parentheses.
	      For   example,  with  the	 array	`hosts=(ftp  news)'  the  call
	      `_sep_parts '(foo bar)' @ hosts' will complete the  string   `f'
	      to `foo' and the string `b@n' to `bar@news'.

	      This  function  accepts  the  compadd  options `-V', `-J', `-1',
	      `-2', `-n', `-X', `-M', `-P', `-S', `-r',	 `-R',	and  `-q'  and
	      passes them on to the compadd builtin used to add the matches.

       _setup tag [ group ]
	      This function sets up the special parameters used by the comple‐
	      tion system appropriately for the tag given as the  first	 argu‐
	      ment.	It   uses   the	  styles   list-colors,	  list-packed,
	      list-rows-first, last-prompt, accept-exact, menu and force-list.

	      The optional group supplies the name of the group in  which  the
	      matches  will be placed.	If it is not given, the tag is used as
	      the group name.

	      This function is	called	automatically  from  _description  and
	      hence is not normally called explicitly.

       _store_cache cache_identifier params ...
	      This function, together with _retrieve_cache and _cache_invalid,
	      implements a caching layer which can be used in  any  completion
	      function.	  Data	obtained  by  costly  operations are stored in
	      parameters; this function then dumps the values of those parame‐
	      ters  to	a  file.   The data can then be retrieved quickly from
	      that file via _retrieve_cache, even in  different	 instances  of
	      the shell.

	      The cache_identifier specifies the file which the data should be
	      dumped to.  The file is stored in a directory specified  by  the
	      cache-path style which defaults to ~/.zcompcache.	 The remaining
	      params arguments are the parameters to dump to the file.

	      The return status is zero if storage was successful.  The	 func‐
	      tion will only attempt storage if the use-cache style is set, so
	      you can call this function without worrying  about  whether  the
	      user wanted to use the caching layer.

	      The  completion  function may avoid calling _retrieve_cache when
	      it already has the  completion  data  available  as  parameters.
	      However,	in  that  case	it should call _cache_invalid to check
	      whether the data in the parameters and in the  cache  are	 still
	      valid.

	      See  the	_perl_modules completion function for a simple example
	      of the usage of the caching layer.

       _tags [ [ -C name ] tags ... ]
	      If called with arguments, these are taken to  be	the  names  of
	      tags  valid  for completions in the current context.  These tags
	      are stored internally and sorted by using the tag-order style.

	      Next, _tags is called repeatedly without arguments from the same
	      completion  function.  This successively selects the first, sec‐
	      ond, etc. set of tags requested by the user.  The return	status
	      is  zero	if  at least one of the tags is requested and non-zero
	      otherwise.  To test if a particular tag  is  to  be  tried,  the
	      _requested function should be called (see above).

	      If  `-C  name' is given, name is temporarily stored in the argu‐
	      ment field (the fifth) of the context in the curcontext  parame‐
	      ter  during  the	call  to _tags; the field is restored on exit.
	      This allows _tags to use a more specific context without	having
	      to change and reset the curcontext parameter (which has the same
	      effect).

       _values [ -O name ] [ -s sep ] [ -S sep ] [ -wC ] desc spec ...
	      This is used to complete arbitrary keywords (values)  and	 their
	      arguments, or lists of such combinations.

	      If  the  first argument is the option `-O name', it will be used
	      in the same way as by the _arguments function.  In other	words,
	      the  elements  of	 the name array will be passed to compadd when
	      executing an action.

	      If the first argument (or the first argument after `-O name') is
	      `-s',  the next argument is used as the character that separates
	      multiple values.	This character is  automatically  added	 after
	      each  value in an auto-removable fashion (see below); all values
	      completed by `_values -s' appear in the same word on the command
	      line, unlike completion using _arguments.	 If this option is not
	      present, only a single value will be completed per word.

	      Normally, _values will only use the current  word	 to  determine
	      which  values  are already present on the command line and hence
	      are not to be completed again.  If the -w option is given, other
	      arguments are examined as well.

	      The  first non-option argument is used as a string to print as a
	      description before listing the values.

	      All other arguments describe the possible values and their argu‐
	      ments  in the same format used for the description of options by
	      the _arguments function (see above).  The only  differences  are
	      that  no minus or plus sign is required at the beginning, values
	      can have only one argument, and the forms	 of  action  beginning
	      with an equal sign are not supported.

	      The  character  separating  a value from its argument can be set
	      using the option -S (like -s, followed by the character  to  use
	      as  the  separator in the next argument).	 By default the equals
	      sign will be used as the separator between values and arguments.

	      Example:

		     _values -s , 'description' \
			     '*foo[bar]' \
			     '(two)*one[number]:first count:' \
			     'two[another number]::second count:(1 2 3)'

	      This describes three possible values: `foo', `one',  and	`two'.
	      The  first  is  described	 as  `bar',  takes no argument and may
	      appear more than once.  The second is described as `number', may
	      appear   more  than  once,  and  takes  one  mandatory  argument
	      described as `first count'; no action is specified, so  it  will
	      not be completed.	 The `(two)' at the beginning says that if the
	      value `one' is on the line, the value `two' will	no  longer  be
	      considered  a  possible  completion.   Finally,  the  last value
	      (`two') is described as `another number' and takes  an  optional
	      argument	described  as `second count' for which the completions
	      (to appear after an `=') are `1', `2',  and  `3'.	  The  _values
	      function	will  complete lists of these values separated by com‐
	      mas.

	      Like _arguments, this function temporarily adds another  context
	      name  component to the arguments element (the fifth) of the cur‐
	      rent context while executing the action.	Here this name is just
	      the name of the value for which the argument is completed.

	      The  style verbose is used to decide if the descriptions for the
	      values (but not those for the arguments) should be printed.

	      The associative array val_args is	 used  to  report  values  and
	      their  arguments;	 this works similarly to the opt_args associa‐
	      tive array used by _arguments.  Hence the function calling _val‐
	      ues  should  declare  the	 local	parameters state, state_descr,
	      line, context and val_args:

		     local context state state_descr line
		     typeset -A val_args

	      when using an action of the form `->string'.  With this function
	      the context parameter will be set to the name of the value whose
	      argument is to be completed.  Note that for _values,  the	 state
	      and  state_descr	are scalars rather than arrays.	 Only a single
	      matching state is returned.

	      Note also that _values normally adds the character used  as  the
	      separator between values as an auto-removable suffix (similar to
	      a `/' after a directory).	 However, this is not possible	for  a
	      `->string'  action as the matches for the argument are generated
	      by the calling function.	To get the usual behaviour, the	 call‐
	      ing  function can add the separator x as a suffix by passing the
	      options `-qS x' either directly or indirectly to compadd.

	      The option -C is treated in the same way as it is by _arguments.
	      In  that	case  the  parameter  curcontext  should be made local
	      instead of context (as described above).

       _wanted [ -x ] [ -C name ]  [ -12VJ ] tag name descr command args ...
	      In many contexts, completion can only  generate  one  particular
	      set of matches, usually corresponding to a single tag.  However,
	      it is still  necessary  to  decide  whether  the	user  requires
	      matches of this type.  This function is useful in such a case.

	      The  arguments  to  _wanted are the same as those to _requested,
	      i.e. arguments to be passed to _description.  However,  in  this
	      case  the	 command is not optional;  all the processing of tags,
	      including the loop over both tags and tag labels and the genera‐
	      tion of matches, is carried out automatically by _wanted.

	      Hence  to offer only one tag and immediately add the correspond‐
	      ing matches with the given description:

		     local expl
		     _wanted tag expl 'description' \
			 compadd matches...

	      Note that, as for _requested, the command must be able to accept
	      options to be passed down to compadd.

	      Like  _tags  this function supports the -C option to give a dif‐
	      ferent name for the argument context field.  The -x  option  has
	      the same meaning as for _description.

COMPLETION DIRECTORIES
       In  the	source distribution, the files are contained in various subdi‐
       rectories of the Completion directory.  They may have been installed in
       the same structure, or into one single function directory.  The follow‐
       ing is a description of the  files  found  in  the  original  directory
       structure.   If	you  wish to alter an installed file, you will need to
       copy it to some directory which appears earlier in your fpath than  the
       standard directory where it appears.

       Base   The  core functions and special completion widgets automatically
	      bound to keys.  You will certainly need most  of	these,	though
	      will  probably  not need to alter them.  Many of these are docu‐
	      mented above.

       Zsh    Functions for completing arguments of shell builtin commands and
	      utility  functions  for  this.   Some  of these are also used by
	      functions from the Unix directory.

       Unix   Functions for completing	arguments  of  external	 commands  and
	      suites  of  commands.   They may need modifying for your system,
	      although in many cases some attempt is made to decide which ver‐
	      sion  of	a command is present.  For example, completion for the
	      mount command tries to determine the system it  is  running  on,
	      while  completion for many other utilities try to decide whether
	      the GNU version of the command is in use, and hence whether  the
	      --help option is supported.

       X, AIX, BSD, ...
	      Completion  and  utility function for commands available only on
	      some systems.  These are not arranged  hierarchically,  so,  for
	      example, both the Linux and Debian directories, as well as the X
	      directory, may be useful on your system.

zsh 5.0.5			January 5, 2014			 ZSHCOMPSYS(1)
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