zsh tab complete . to ./

Question

Not a duplicate:
I'm not looking for a way to complete directory names or execute scripts from a fixed directory. The issue I'm trying to solve is to get completion for the current directory without pressing /

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I want zsh to tab-complete . to ./ like bash.

With bash I'm used to press .TABTAB to see all files in the current working directory since it first completes to ./ and then shows all content in that directory. Reason for my desire to avoid / at all cost is that / is way harder on my german keyboard than TAB since it's either with 2 fingers with shift or far away on numpad and I'd rather switch back to bash than type a /. What I'd like to achieve, in other words what bash does:

$ .               <TAB>
$ ./              <TAB>
foo.sh   somedir/
$ ./              <F><TAB>
$ ./foo.sh        <ENTER>

Using zsh / oh-my-zsh when I hit .TAB I get . (dot space) which is not useful at all for me.

• Using zstyle ':completion:*' special-dirs true with setopt auto_cd (which is oh-my-zsh default) gives me the even less useful option for ../ on top, so I turned that off already. I'm happy with completion of cd.
• There is no . on $PATH and it should stay that way. Though I wouldn't mind completion of e.g. f<TAB> to ./foo.sh for example.

How can I teach zsh to complete . to ./ or even better to local directory content right away? Or is there another way to work with local script files in an efficient way that does not involve /?

Answer 1

Great challenge! Try this on the commandline, if it works add it to ~/.zshrc

bindkey '^I' dotcomplete
zle -N dotcomplete

function dotcomplete() {                                        
  if [[ $BUFFER =~ ^'\.'$ ]]; then
    BUFFER='./'
    CURSOR=2
    zle list-choices
  else
    zle expand-or-complete
  fi
}                    

It adds a function which runs every time you press TAB (^I). If the the line you've currently typed only contains a dot (^=beginning of line, '\.' =super-escape the dot, $=end of line), then replace that dot with a ./ then continue with the normal completion.

It doesn't exactly do what you ask, which is to treat the dot as the current directory. But it will save you they keystrokes you want to save.

Answer 2

given your f<TAB> option/workaround, I present:

$ function f(){ local x=$1; shift; ./"$x" "$@"; }
$ f foo<TAB>

notice the space after f in that last line