Skip to content

Comments

Improved completion by allowing configuration of whether option values should be completed#1250

Open
czpilar wants to merge 1 commit intospring-projects:mainfrom
czpilar:patches/1246-improved-completion
Open

Improved completion by allowing configuration of whether option values should be completed#1250
czpilar wants to merge 1 commit intospring-projects:mainfrom
czpilar:patches/1246-improved-completion

Conversation

@czpilar
Copy link
Contributor

@czpilar czpilar commented Dec 28, 2025

Improves #1246
Resolves #285

@czpilar
Copy link
Contributor Author

czpilar commented Dec 28, 2025 •
edited
Loading

Hello,

I’ve just improved --key=value completion by parameterizing the Option annotation so you can specify whether the option value should be completed or not. By default, this is set to true, which means option names are completed with a space. When you specify completion=false, an = is appended to the option name instead. This improves #1246.

@Option(longName = "first", shortName = 'f', completion = false) String first

I’ve also improved the completion provider so you can control whether a completion proposal should be completed or not, as mentioned in #285.

See the following examples.
The first example shows two commands where the hello command has options with completion enabled. The second command, hello2, has options with completion disabled.

This means completion will behave as follows:

shell:> hello --first Peter --last Chan

shell:> hello2 --first=Peter --last=Chan

package org.springframework.shell.samples.helloworld.boot;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.shell.core.command.CommandOption;
import org.springframework.shell.core.command.annotation.Command;
import org.springframework.shell.core.command.annotation.Option;
import org.springframework.shell.core.command.completion.CompletionProposal;
import org.springframework.shell.core.command.completion.CompletionProvider;

import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.stream.Stream;

@SpringBootApplication
public class SpringShellApplication {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		SpringApplication.run(SpringShellApplication.class, args);
	}

	@Command(name = "hello", completionProvider = "helloNameCompletionProvider")
	public void sayHello(@Option(longName = "first", shortName = 'f') String first,
			@Option(longName = "last", shortName = 'l') String last) {
		System.out.println("Hello " + first + " " + last + "!");
	}

	@Command(name = "hello2", completionProvider = "helloNameCompletionProvider")
	public void sayHello2(@Option(longName = "first", shortName = 'f', completion = false) String first,
			@Option(longName = "last", shortName = 'l', completion = false) String last) {
		System.out.println("Hello2 " + first + " " + last + "!");
	}

	@Bean
	public CompletionProvider helloNameCompletionProvider() {
		return completionContext -> {
			CommandOption option = completionContext.getCommandOption();
			if (option == null) {
				return Collections.emptyList();
			}

			String word = completionContext.getWords().get(completionContext.getWords().size() - 1);
			String prefix = word.contains("=") ? word.substring(0, word.indexOf('=') + 1) : "";

			Stream<String> options = Stream.empty();

			if ("first".equals(option.longName())) {
				options = Stream.of("Peter", "Paul", "Mary");
			}
			else if ("last".equals(option.longName())) {
				options = Stream.of("Chan", "Noris");
			}

			return options.map(str -> new CompletionProposal(prefix + str).displayText(str)).toList();
		};
	}

}

The second example shows how to use a completion provider with completion disabled for its completion proposals.

This means completion will behave as follows:

shell:>snake --first=Mary/Paul/Paul/Paul/Paul/Paul/Paul/Paul/Paul/Paul --last=Noris/Chan/Chan/Noris/Noris/Noris

In this case, the completion proposals are appended with /, and the proposals themselves are not completed. This was requested in #285.

package org.springframework.shell.samples.helloworld.boot;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.shell.core.command.CommandOption;
import org.springframework.shell.core.command.annotation.Command;
import org.springframework.shell.core.command.annotation.Option;
import org.springframework.shell.core.command.completion.CompletionProposal;
import org.springframework.shell.core.command.completion.CompletionProvider;

import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.stream.Stream;

@SpringBootApplication
public class SpringShellApplication {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		SpringApplication.run(SpringShellApplication.class, args);
	}

	@Command(name = "snake", completionProvider = "snakeCompletionProvider")
	public void snake(@Option(longName = "first", shortName = 'f', completion = false) String first,
			@Option(longName = "last", shortName = 'l', completion = false) String last) {
		System.out.println("Snake " + first + " " + last + "!");
	}

	@Bean
	public CompletionProvider snakeCompletionProvider() {
		return completionContext -> {
			CommandOption option = completionContext.getCommandOption();
			if (option == null) {
				return Collections.emptyList();
			}

			String word = completionContext.getWords().get(completionContext.getWords().size() - 1);
			String prefix = word.endsWith("=") || word.endsWith("/") ? word : word + "/";

			Stream<String> options = Stream.empty();

			if ("first".equals(option.longName())) {
				options = Stream.of("Peter", "Paul", "Mary");
			}
			else if ("last".equals(option.longName())) {
				options = Stream.of("Chan", "Noris");
			}

			return options.map(str -> new CompletionProposal(prefix + str).displayText(str).complete(false)).toList();
		};
	}

}

I’ve also added many tests to cover this behavior.

As a next step, it could be useful to allow defining a custom separator character instead of just a space or equals sign, but that would require changes to the command parser as well.

@czpilar
Copy link
Contributor Author

czpilar commented Dec 28, 2025

@fmbenhassine Please take a look at this PR.

@czpilar czpilar force-pushed the patches/1246-improved-completion branch from a39c294 to 79086d2 Compare December 30, 2025 14:52
@czpilar czpilar marked this pull request as draft December 31, 2025 17:52
@czpilar
Copy link
Contributor Author

czpilar commented Dec 31, 2025

Converting this to a draft PR. There will be conflicts with #1256. After #1256 is merged, I will resolve the conflicts.

@czpilar czpilar force-pushed the patches/1246-improved-completion branch from 79086d2 to 9b36c4d Compare January 22, 2026 17:18
@czpilar
Copy link
Contributor Author

czpilar commented Jan 22, 2026

Conflicts resolved, it is ready to merge if the change is suitable. Please, let me know.

@czpilar czpilar marked this pull request as ready for review January 22, 2026 17:20
@czpilar czpilar force-pushed the patches/1246-improved-completion branch from 9b36c4d to 7e8cc9c Compare January 29, 2026 15:58
@fmbenhassine
Copy link
Contributor

fmbenhassine commented Jan 30, 2026

Thank you for the PR!

I need more time to think about this new completion attribute you suggest here. Please keep this open and I will take a look after 4.0.1.

@czpilar
Copy link
Contributor Author

czpilar commented Jan 30, 2026

@fmbenhassine Yes, I’m aware of the new attribute. I’m absolutely fine if you suggest a different solution or attribute name, or if you decide this isn’t a good approach at all. I’ll keep this PR open and resolve all conflicts.

@czpilar
Improved completion by allowing configuration of whether option value…
15bec06 
…s should be completed

Signed-off-by: David Pilar <david@czpilar.net>
@czpilar czpilar force-pushed the patches/1246-improved-completion branch from 7e8cc9c to 15bec06 Compare January 30, 2026 05:55
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Reviewers

No reviews

Assignees

No one assigned

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Milestone

No milestone

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

Tab auto-complete will always put a space after selected option

2 participants

@czpilar @fmbenhassine